Systems and methods for loyalty programs

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems for generating alerts or recommend incentives for a loyalty program that provides incentives to cardholders in connection with transactions between the cardholders and merchants are disclosed. A merchant is identified. Transaction data reflective of completed transactions are received by way of a network. The transaction data is processed to generate an alert notifying the identified merchant of an event or trend, or to generate a recommended incentive that defines a benefit to be provided by the identified merchant to a cardholder upon the occurrence of an anticipated transaction.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 61/839,571, filed Jun. 26, 2013, and U.S. ProvisionalPatent Application No. 61/963,424, filed Nov. 20, 2013. The contents ofthese two applications are hereby incorporated by reference in theirentireties.

FIELD

The embodiments described herein relate to systems and methods forloyalty programs, and in particular, to systems and methods for loyaltyprograms involving merchants and loyalty program members holdingfinancial cards from a card issuer associated with the loyalty rewardprogram.

BACKGROUND

The term “merchant” may refer to an entity who participates in a loyaltyprogram to build loyalty with customers, and potentially acquire newbusiness, and in exchange is willing to provide a loyalty “benefit”,which may include the various types of benefits that may be associatedwith loyalty cards including points, whether convertible to financialrewards, or financial rewards convertible to points, cash, products,services, discounts, value add-ons for purchases of products orservices, the opportunity to enter into a contest with prizescontributed by the merchants, financial institutions and/or the loyaltysystem operator.

A “member” may refer to the customer or potential customer who is amember of the loyalty program.

A “card issuer” may refer to an entity that issues (directly or throughan agent) financial cards to individuals or businesses. The card issueris generally a financial institution, a financial institution inassociation with a credit card company, or another entity that has afinancial institution arm. “Financial cards” may generally refer tocredit cards, debit cards, INTERAC™ cards, stored value cards, and soon.

“Cardholders” may refer to the individuals or businesses to whom thefinancial cards are issued. “Loyalty” may be used in the broad sense toalso extend to “rewards”; therefore a “loyalty program” may also extendto a “reward program”.

Customer acquisition systems may play an increasingly important role forbusiness. Customer loyalty programs can contribute to the loyalty ofexisting customers, but also can play a role in acquiring new customers.

The businesses of the various card issuers may vary significantly.Financial cards are generally issued by or issued in cooperation withfinancial institutions. For example: (1) financial institutions(including a financial institution associated with a source of benefits)issue financial cards directly to customers; and (2) a co-brandedfinancial card including for example the brand of the financialinstitution and the brand of a source of benefits.

Financial institutions are often interested in partnering with otherentities, such as sources of benefits, to make the benefits associatedwith their financial card competitive. This may be in order to retainand attract their customers, but also in order to compete fortransaction share as cardholders generally carry more than one financialcard in their wallet. Transaction share in turn affects the revenuerealized by the financial institution. Accordingly, financialinstitutions tend to measure the effectiveness of their marketingefforts in connection with financial cards by analyzing incrementaltransactions involving their financial card.

In addition, financial institutions are generally interested in sharingprofit/risk with other parties in connection with their financial cardrelated activities. This is evidenced in the popularity of co-brandedcards. Generally speaking, however, card issuers are only interested inproviding access to their customer base to outside parties if there issignificant financial reward, and if this access does not conflict withtheir own interests and/or present any risk to the customer base.

Merchants provide benefits to their customers for reasons that are notdissimilar to the factors that motivate financial institutions.Merchants are interested in attracting and maintaining customers. Thecost of acquisition of a new customer for many merchants is quite high.While merchants are interested in acquiring new customers efficiently,they are often also willing to provide relatively significant benefitsin exchange for a new customer relationship from an outside source.

Merchants and financial institutions often collaborate in the context ofco-branded financial cards. Examples include airline/credit cards, oilcompany financial cards, or retail chain financial cards. From amerchant perspective, these collaborative arrangements are generallyavailable to large national chains and are not generally available toregional chains or small businesses, even though from a customeracquisition or benefits perspective such regional chains or smallbusinesses might be of interest to a financial institution.

The costs associated with deploying and marketing a co-branded cardrequires economies of scale that effectively exclude many regional orsmall business co-branded financial card arrangements. From theperspective of a financial institution, the benefits associated with theco-branded financial cards are generally limited to the type of benefitsmade available by a merchant or a relatively small group of associatedpartners. This exposes the financial institution to competition to otherco-branded financial cards, especially if the merchant associated withthe competing card is more popular or makes better benefits available.Also, relationships with merchants become difficult or cumbersome toreplace (especially over time) thereby resulting in loss of bargainingpower in the hands of the financial institution and thereby possibleerosion of benefits. This contributes risk to the financialinstitution's card issuing operation, and also generally results infinancial institutions entering into multiple co-branding relationships,which in turn adds to the associated costs.

Known loyalty programs may lack flexibility in the manner in whichtransactions triggering the accrual of benefits to cardholders mustoccur. The benefit that a merchant participating in a loyalty program iswilling to provide will depend on a particular merchant and theirbusiness objectives at a particular time, and in some cases on thespecial demographic attributes of the cardholders, or a particularsubset of cardholders. Known systems may not enable merchants tosuitably reflect these changing objectives in the manner in whichbenefits are accrued to cardholders in connection with financialtransactions.

There is a need for an improved method to encourage members to join aloyalty program in relatively large numbers. There is also a need for anefficient method to encourage cardholders to use their financial cardsin a greater number of transactions thereby protecting transactionmarket share. There is a further need for an improved method forfinancial institutions and merchants to collaborate to attract andmaintain customers. There is a further need for a loyalty system thatenables card issuers to build loyalty with cardholders by maximizing thebenefits that are available to their cardholders via the loyalty system.Therefore there is a need for a loyalty program linked to card issuersand their cardholders that allows the participation of multiplemerchants, and the flexibility that enables the benefit to thecardholder to be maximized by responding to the changing businessobjectives of the merchants. There is a further need for a loyaltyprogram that enables multiple merchants to reflect their changingbusiness objectives by dynamically modifying the rules of the loyaltyprogram as they relate to benefits accrued by cardholders. There is aneed for a loyalty program that enables merchants to customize theirloyalty program, including as it related to cardholders who becomemembers of the loyalty program, on the fly, including based oneffectiveness and incremental cost. Finally, there is a need for aloyalty program that analyzes customer and cardholder data to suggestincentives and rewards to merchants to customize their loyalty program.

SUMMARY

In an aspect, there is provided a computer-implemented method ofgenerating alerts for a loyalty program that provides incentives tocardholders in connection with transactions between the cardholders andmerchants. The method includes: storing, in an electronic datastore, aplurality of rules, each rule of the plurality of rules defining atleast one condition for generating an alert; receiving, by way of anetwork, transaction data reflective of completed transactions;identifying a merchant; identifying an event or trend by applying atleast one rule of the plurality of rules to the received transactiondata; and generating an alert to notify the identified merchant of theidentified event or trend.

In another aspect, there is provided a system for generating alerts fora loyalty program that provides incentives to cardholders in connectionwith transactions between the cardholders and merchants. The systemincludes at least one processor; an electronic datastore storing aplurality of rules, each rule of the plurality of rules defining atleast one condition for generating an alert; a network interface; memorystoring instructions executable at the at least one processor to causethe system to: receive, by way of the network interface, transactiondata reflective of completed transactions; identify a merchant; identifyan event or trend by applying at least one rule of the plurality ofrules to the received transaction data; and generate an alert notifyingthe identified merchant of the identified event or trend.

In a further aspect, there is provided a computer-implemented method ofgenerating recommended incentives to cardholders in connection withtransactions between the cardholders and merchants. The method includes:receiving, by way of a network, transaction data reflective of completedtransactions; processing the received transaction data to identify atleast one cardholder attribute; identifying a merchant; identifying atleast one cardholder; identifying an anticipated transaction between themerchant and the at least one cardholder; and generating a recommendedincentive for the identified at least one cardholder based on the atleast one cardholder attribute, wherein the recommended incentivedefines a benefit to be provided by the identified merchant to theidentified at least one cardholder upon the occurrence of theanticipated transaction.

In yet another aspect, there is provided a system for generatingrecommended incentives to cardholders in connection with transactionsbetween the cardholders and merchants. The system includes: at least oneprocessor; a network interface; memory storing instructions executableat the at least one processor to cause the system to: receive, by way ofthe network interface, transaction data reflective of completedtransactions; process the received transaction data to identify at leastone cardholder attribute; identify a merchant; identify at least onecardholder; identify an anticipated transaction between the merchant andthe at least one cardholder; and generate a recommended incentive forthe identified at least one cardholder based on the at least onecardholder attribute, wherein the recommended incentive defines abenefit to be provided by the identified merchant to the identified atleast one cardholder upon the occurrence of the anticipated transaction.

In a yet further aspect, there is provided a computer-implemented methodof providing charitable incentives. The method includes: identifying acharity and a plurality of donors associated with the charity, whereinthe plurality of donors comprise cardholders or potential cardholdersfor a loyalty program; identifying a merchant; identifying ananticipated transaction between the merchant and a donor of theplurality of donors; and selecting an incentive based on the charity,attributes of the plurality of donors, the identified merchant, and theidentified anticipated transaction, wherein the incentive defines abenefit to be provided by the merchant to the charity upon theoccurrence of the anticipated transaction.

DRAWINGS

Various embodiments will now be described, by way of example only, withreference to the following drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a network diagram illustrating a communication networkinterconnecting a loyalty system with a merchant system and a cardissuer system in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 2 is a high-level block diagram of a computing device adapted tofunction as the loyalty system of FIG. 1 in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the loyalty system, merchant system,and card issuer system of FIG. 1 in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 4 is a network diagram illustrating a communication networkinterconnecting a loyalty system with a merchant system, a card issuersystem and a charity system in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of the loyalty system, merchant system,card issuer system, and charity system of FIG. 4 in accordance withexample embodiments;

FIGS. 6A and 6B provide flowchart diagrams of example methods performedby the loyalty systems of FIG. 1 and FIG. 4, respectively, in accordancewith example embodiments;

FIG. 7 shows an example screen of a merchant dashboard in accordancewith example embodiments;

FIG. 8 illustrates an example interface for creating incentives andrewards for one or more loyalty programs in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 9 illustrates an example interface for choosing an objective forthe custom incentive in accordance with example embodiments;

FIGS. 10A and 10B illustrate an example interface for targetingcustomers with the incentive in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 11A illustrates an interface screen for a custom incentive with theobject to increase spending in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 11B illustrates an interface screen for a custom incentive with theobject to bring in new customers to one or more locations in accordancewith example embodiments;

FIG. 12 illustrates an interface screen for customizing an incentive inaccordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 13A illustrates an interface screen for customizing a rewardschedule where the reward is a single time reward (e.g. may be redeemeda single time) in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 13B illustrates an interface screen for customizing a rewardschedule where the reward is a repeating reward (e.g. may be availablemultiple times) in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 14 displays an interface screen for a preview of the customincentive in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 15 displays an interface screen for a preview of the customincentive in a mobile format in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 16 displays an interface screen for a confirmation screen of thecustom incentive in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 17 displays an interface screen for creating an event drivenincentive in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 18 displays an interface screen for creating an event drivenincentive with the objective of addressing negative feedback inaccordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 19 displays an interface screen for creating an event drivenincentive with the objective of rewarding spending in accordance withexample embodiments;

FIG. 20 displays an interface screen for creating an event drivenincentive with the objective of rewarding frequent visits in accordancewith example embodiments;

FIG. 21 displays an interface screen for creating an incentive from asample in accordance with example embodiments;

FIGS. 22A, 22B provide an interface screen with example alerts inaccordance with example embodiments;

FIGS. 23A, 23B, 23C provide an interface screen with further examplealerts in accordance with example embodiments;

FIGS. 24 and 25 provide an interface screen with customer demographicstrends in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 26 provides an interface screen with customer performance trends inaccordance with example embodiments;

FIGS. 27 and 28 provide an interface screen with a performance rewardhover mechanism in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 29 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 30 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in a default view in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 31 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in an expanded reward view in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 32 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in an survey review view in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 33 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in an remove survey items view in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 34 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in rating questions view in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 35 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice to ask a survey question in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 36 illustrates another example interface for display on acardholder device to ask a survey question in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 37 illustrates another example interface for display on acardholder device to is response to receiving a survey or review inaccordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 38 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an aggregated view of donations in accordance withexample embodiments;

FIG. 39 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an Interest Indicator in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 40 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an interest question in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 41 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an overview of rewards in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 42 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an overview of rewards in an expanded view inaccordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 43 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide a transaction feedback survey in accordance withexample embodiments;

FIG. 44 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to remove survey items in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 45 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide survey rating questions in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 46 illustrates another example interface for display on acardholder device to provide survey rating questions in accordance withexample embodiments;

FIG. 47 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide a review field in accordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 48 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to display when a review is complete in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 49 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide information regarding a charity and a donation inaccordance with example embodiments;

FIG. 50 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide a list of Interest Questions in accordance withexample embodiments;

FIG. 51 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an Interest Question in accordance with exampleembodiments;

FIG. 52 illustrates example demographics summary panes and a settingssummary pane in accordance with example embodiments;

FIGS. 53 and 54 illustrate flow diagrams for creating a reward orincentive in accordance with example embodiments; and

FIG. 55 illustrates an interface screen for customizing an incentive inaccordance with example embodiments.

For simplicity and clarity of illustration, where consideredappropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures toindicate corresponding or analogous elements or steps. In addition,numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the exemplary embodiments described herein. However, itwill be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that theembodiments described herein may be practiced without these specificdetails. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures andcomponents have not been described in detail so as not to obscure theembodiments generally described herein.

DESCRIPTION OF VARIOUS EMBODIMENTS

The extent to which merchants are willing to provide benefits,incentives, and rewards to cardholders in the context of a loyaltyprogram is enhanced if means are provided to enable merchants to verifythe commercial benefit derived by the merchants, and means are providedto tailor the benefits to particular cardholders based on cardholderpreferences, spending habits, and the like. Benefits to cardholders maybe increased, with resulting benefits to card issuers, if the merchantsare given in accordance with embodiments described herein the tools tomeasure and monitor the effectiveness and incremental cost of theiractivities involving benefits to cardholders. There is a need for amethod, system and computer program that enable merchants to monitor andverify the commercial benefit that they are deriving from benefits beingprovided to cardholders who are members of the loyalty program, therebyencouraging the merchants to increase the level of benefits that theyprovide.

While the present disclosure refers to cardholders and card issuers, itshould be understood that in some embodiments, aspects of the presentdisclosure can be applied when there are no actual cards. For example,in mobile device payment mechanisms may utilize physical or soft tokenswhich link or identity a “cardholder” with an account or profile at a“card issuer” without the actual use of a physical card. Similarly,online or telephone payments may be processed using MasterCard'sMasterPass™, Paypal™, Google Wallet™ or any other online payment systemcan handle transactions involving a “cardholder” without the use of acard.

Systems and methods described herein may recommend incentives formerchants based on data mining and analysis of cardholder or member datacollected by card issuers, for example. Systems and methods describedherein may provide incentive performance indicators for merchants todiscover trends in performance and monitor the impact of incentives.

Systems and methods described herein may provide systems and methods forproviding alerts for a loyalty program provided by a loyalty system. Themethod may involve receiving (via a computer hardware input interface)transaction data comprising one or more cardholder attributes fromcardholder data collected by one or more card issuers, identifying amerchant, identifying (via an alert engine provided by a persistentstore) one or more events or trends by applying rules to the transactiondata, and generating an alert notification for the merchant based on theone or more events or trends.

The cardholder attributes may include demographics, and the trends maybe based on the demographics. The trend triggering the alert may relateto a slow period for the merchant (e.g. a time of day, a day of week), agap in demographics for the merchant, a high spending threshold, a highnumber of visits threshold, and so on.

The alert may include a recommended incentive linked to the trend orevent.

Systems and methods of embodiments described herein may enable creationor generation of incentives for a loyalty program provided by a loyaltysystem, wherein the loyalty program provides the incentives tocardholders (e.g. customers, members) in connection with transactionsbetween the cardholders and one or more merchants associated with theloyalty system.

Systems and methods described herein may provide a merchant interfacefor management of incentive programs, for review of incentiveperformance indicators, and for managing alerts based on trends andevents. Systems and methods described herein may provide dynamic anditerative incentive planning tools and workflows to obtain decisionsupport in building incentives, such as recommendations of incentives,alerts, target cardholders, and the associated transactions. Systems andmethods described herein may enable monitoring of the impact ofincentives, in order to calibrate incentive attributes. Systems andmethods described herein may provide incentive segmenting criteria andallows the user to modify the criteria and immediately and see a refreshof the various components of the “impact” display segments.

Systems and methods described herein may provide effective incentiveperformance discovery. Systems and methods described herein may identifyincentive performance indicators, enable selection of attributes tofilter the incentive performance indicators, switch the views of theincentive performance indicators based on the selection to discovertrends in performance. The discovered trends may enable a merchant tomodify incentive attributes and receive recommendations. The trends maytrigger generation of alert notifications for merchants.

Systems and methods described herein may dynamically update data relatedto incentive performance in real time.

Systems and methods described herein may recommend incentives formerchants using a recommendation engine to assist a merchant indesigning and offering incentives. A merchant may specify a “rewardobjective” and recommendations may be tailored based on the objective.The recommendations may also be based on data regarding differentmerchants, the number of customers that they have, average spend,purchasing history, demographics, and the like. An analytics engine maycompare the merchant profile to performance of a particular type ofincentive, consider geographic and demographic trends and so on. Therecommendation engine may make more granular incentive recommendationson this basis.

A recommendation engine may generate reward recommendations based ondata relating to merchants. For example, the recommendation engine maysuggest the most relevant/effective rewards for a business or customerbased on sales patterns, historical reward performance/redemptions,cardholder demographics/interests, and so on.

Systems and methods described herein may suggest a relevant incentiveobjective, and based on the objective may suggest or recommend aparticular segment of customers or cardholders to target. Optionallyfurther suggestions for particular incentive attributes for targetingthat segment based on performance of that attribute may be provided.Systems and methods described herein may consider interests of thetargeted segment in that attribute (e.g. an interest profile may bedetermined up front and/or through customer feedback through theplatform).

Systems and methods described herein may match redemptions toincentives. This may reduce the overhead associated with the platform.

A recommendation engine may also generate alert. Each alert may beassociated with a trigger defining a business rule or threshold thatidentifies events and trends in the marketplace. A recommendation enginemay mine the system data to determine whether a trigger is met togenerate the associated alert. The business rules and thresholds foralert triggers may be default values or may be user configurable. Insome embodiments, alerts may be generated by an alert engine separatefrom the recommendation engine.

Alerts generated by the recommendation engine may be specific to themerchant's particular context. In some cases, use of collected data maybe restricted, such as between competitors in the same geographic area.The recommendation engine can gather these cardholder insights orattributes in one geographic area and allow them to be used in anothergeographic area.

Systems and methods described herein may enable discovery ofrelationships between revenue, transactions, merchant, and cardholders.These relationships may be referred to collectively as trends.

Systems and methods described herein may provide an interface forcardholders to manage their incentives, preferences, and attributes.Systems and methods described herein may provide a cardholder interfacedisplaying functional tiles representing incentives in variouscombinations. There may be dynamic variance of tile size based ondifferent dimensions of incentive relevance to the particularcardholder. Systems and methods described herein may perform a balancingbetween wanting to show relevant offers, and also offering the chance tocardholders to see new incentives that they may not have selected beforeso they can expand their understanding of what they consider to be ofinterest to them. The selections may result in an update to the interestprofile for the cardholder. Previously redeemed incentives may also bedisplayed. This may serve as a reminder to the cardholder and may beengaging as this information demonstrates the relevance of the platformto the cardholder.

Systems and methods described herein may provide donations as anincentive or as part of incentive to an organization selected by thecardholder, merchant, card issuer, and the like. The pooled results ofmultiple incentives may provide community donations or “social networkfundraising”. The tile interface may be updated in real time and maytrack where members of a cardholder's social network are transacting,the types of incentives they are receiving, and, optionally, thecommunity donation impact that results. This may provide strongmotivation to other members of the same group to mimic the behavior ofmembers of their social network. The tile interface may update inreal-time to display the impact of a group, including based on differentselected time periods.

Systems and methods described herein may include a semantic layer thatanalyzes feedback/comments received from cardholders automatically, anduses this information to automatically update recommendation enginefunctions and incentive performance information. A cascading interestanalysis may be used to obtain active feedback by generating a list ofrelated interests for selection by the cardholder. Systems and methodsdescribed herein may automatically update the incentive interest profilefor the cardholder based on the selected interests. A semantic enginemay be used to generate related interest labels.

The framework for an example loyalty system will now be described. Aloyalty program may be linked to one or more card issuers, wherefinancial and/or loyalty cards are provided to members of the loyaltyprogram, referred to as cardholders. The loyalty card may refer to aphysical card with an electronic device thereon, an electronic accountassociated with a member, and the like. The loyalty system is operableto enable the creation, implementation and management of one or moreloyalty programs that provide benefits to members of the loyaltyprograms (e.g. cardholders) in connection with transactions between themembers and one or more merchants associated with the loyalty system.One or more card issuers may register on the loyalty system. Theoperator of the loyalty system, the one or more card issuers, and themerchants may establish the rules for accrual and processing of benefitsor incentives from the merchants to cardholders associated with the oneor more card issuers in connection with transactions between thecardholders and the merchants with the loyalty system. One or moremerchant acquirers register on the loyalty system associated with theone or more card issuers. Cardholders are registered as members of theloyalty program. Incentives may be defined by rules to accrue andprocess the benefits of cardholders in connection with the transactionsbetween the cardholders and the merchants by operation of the loyaltysystem.

The loyalty system may increase transactions for the merchant by way ofincentives, and may enable card issuers and merchants to share the riskand costs associated with directing loyalty programs to cardholders. Theloyalty system may connect to systems associated with the card issuersand one or more associated merchant acquirers. On this basis, merchantsmay direct the loyalty programs or aspects thereof to specificcardholders based on BIN ranges, and based on geographic, transactionhistories, demographics, and/or time based parameters.

A loyalty program may be linked to one or more card issuers, and therebyto their cardholders, by operation of a loyalty program platform orloyalty engine or loyalty system. Merchants associated with the loyaltysystem are provided with tools to customize one or more loyalty programsmade available to cardholders or members of the loyalty program platform(customers and potential customers of the merchants).

The operator of the loyalty program platform may establish the rulesregarding the accrual of benefits from merchants to the card issuersand/or cardholders, and establish a contractual relationship with theone or more card issuers, such contracts incorporating the rulesapplicable within the loyalty system in connection with the card issuers(as well as their cardholders). These rules include, for example, theterm of the agreement, accrual periods, geographic area of operation (ifapplicable) and most importantly the particulars of the benefits orincentives (including per transaction benefits, convertibility ofbenefits, accrual periods, timing of obligation regarding realization ofbenefits etc.) accrued to cardholders and/or card issuers. These rulesmay be reinforced in the arrangements entered into between the operatorof the loyalty system and the various merchants so as to define theterms under which benefits will be made available to cardholders and/orcard issuers.

The operator of the loyalty system may establish independently the rulesunder which the merchant shall accrue benefits for cardholders and/orcard issuers, generally independently of card issuer but in conformitywith the arrangements entered between the operator of the loyalty systemand the card issuer. The operator of the loyalty system may manage theaforesaid relationships, and provide access to a technologyinfrastructure that enables card issuers and merchants to focus on usingthe tools of the loyalty system to enhance their business, rather thanspending extensive resources on administrative issues.

Typically, the merchants may agree to conform to commitments that theymake to members that are displayed in a benefits area of a websiteassociated with the members who are cardholders, and linked to theloyalty system. These commitments are generally made by merchants inconnection with the customization of their loyalty programs by operationof the loyalty engine.

The merchant acquirer registers on the loyalty system, if the merchantacquirer is not already registered. The cardholders are registered asmembers on the loyalty system. This occurs in part as a result ofpromotion of the loyalty system to the cardholders by the card issuer,or by the merchant. In addition to the card issuer, in most cases thereis also a “merchant acquirer”, who is an entity that contracts with amerchant to process financial card transaction information, and that mayreceive unique data not received by the card issuer.

The loyalty system applies the aforementioned rules as they apply toeach cardholder who is a member so as to process the applicable benefitsor incentives based on applicable transactions entered into by thecardholder that are linked to the loyalty system, i.e. a qualifyingtransaction between a cardholder and a merchant, as determined by theaforesaid rules for the incentives. By application of such rules, theloyalty system processes the agreed to benefits for the cardholderand/or the card issuer. The processed incentive may be referred to asredemption.

Referring now to FIG. 1, there is shown a loyalty system 26interconnected with a card issuer system 38 and a merchant system 40 byway of a communication network 10.

As depicted, loyalty system 26 is implemented using a computing deviceand one or more data storage devices 33 configured with database(s) orfile system(s), or using multiple computing devices or groups ofcomputing devices distributed over a wide geographic area and connectedvia a network (e.g., network 10). Loyalty system 26 may be connected toeach data storage device 33 directly or via to a cloud based datastorage device interface via a network (e.g., network 10).

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a computing device adapted to functionas loyalty system 26, according to exemplary embodiments. The computingdevice may be any network-enabled computing device, such as a personalcomputer, workstation, server, portable computer, mobile device,personal digital assistant, laptop, tablet, smart phone, WAP phone, aninteractive television, video display terminals, gaming consoles,electronic reading device, and portable electronic devices or acombination of these.

In the depicted embodiment, loyalty system 26 includes at least onemicroprocessor 12, memory 14, at least one I/O interface 16, and atleast one network interface 18.

Microprocessor 12 may be any type of processor, such as, for example,any type of general-purpose microprocessor or microcontroller (e.g., anIntel™ x86, PowerPC™, ARM™ processor, or the like), a digital signalprocessing (DSP) processor, an integrated circuit, a programmableread-only memory (PROM), or any combination thereof.

Memory 14 may include a suitable combination of any type of computermemory that is located either internally or externally such as, forexample, random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), compactdisc read-only memory (CDROM), electro-optical memory, magneto-opticalmemory, erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), andelectrically-erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), or thelike. In some embodiments, memory 14 may reside at least partly in datastorage devices 33 (FIG. 1).

I/O interfaces 16 enable loyalty system 26 to interconnect with inputand output devices. As such, loyalty system 26 may include one or moreinput devices, such as a keyboard, mouse, camera, touch screen and amicrophone, and may also include one or more output devices such as adisplay screen and a speaker.

Network interfaces 18 enable loyalty system 26 to communicate with othercomponents, to serve an application and other applications, and performother computing applications by connecting to a network such as network10 (or multiple networks).

Network 10 may be any network capable of carrying data including theInternet, Ethernet, plain old telephone service (POTS) line, publicswitch telephone network (PSTN), integrated services digital network(ISDN), digital subscriber line (DSL), coaxial cable, fiber optics,satellite, mobile, wireless (e.g. Wi-Fi, WiMAX), SS7 signaling network,fixed line, local area network, wide area network, and others, includingany combination of these.

Although only one loyalty system 26 is shown for clarity, there may bemultiple loyalty systems 26 or groups of loyalty systems 26 distributedover a wide geographic area and interconnected by network 10.

As further detailed below, network 10 allows loyalty system 26 tointeract and connect with card issuer system 38 and merchant acquirersystem 40.

Referring to FIG. 3, loyalty system 26 includes a cardholder benefits(e.g. incentives) processing utility 30. In one example of animplementation, the cardholder benefits processing utility 30 may be asoftware component of a web utility that provides a loyalty engine.Accordingly, cardholder benefits processing utility 30 may be referredto as a loyalty engine.

Loyalty system 26 is interconnected with a database 32, which may bestored on data storage device 33 or elsewhere in memory 14. Database 32may be a conventional relational database such as a MySQL™, Microsoft™SQL, Oracle™ database, or the like. Database 32 may also be another typeof database such as, for example, an objected-oriented database or aNoSQL database. Loyalty system 26 may include a conventional databaseengine (not shown) for accessing database 32, e.g., using queriesformulated using a conventional query language such as SQL, OQL, or thelike.

Database 32 maintains benefits accounts 34 a, merchant accounts 34 b,card issuer accounts 34 c for storing attributes regarding merchants,cardholders and card issuers. As detailed below, such attributes may beused to determine incentives to offer in relation to various loyaltyprograms.

The cardholder benefits processing utility 30 may be programmed toconfigure the database 32 with benefits accounts 34 a of the variouscardholders who are members.

The loyalty system 26 may be programmed to configure the database 32with merchant accounts 34 b of the various merchants who are registeredwith loyalty system 26 to provide loyalty programs and offer incentivesor benefits.

The loyalty system 26 may be programmed to configure the database 32with card issuer accounts 34 c of the various card issuers who areregistered with loyalty system 26 to provide loyalty cards tocardholders for loyalty programs.

Access to different aspects and account records of the database 32 maybe provided by an administration utility (not shown) that enableshierarchical access to the database 32, depending on permissionsassigned by the operator of the loyalty system 26, and to each of themembers, merchants, card issuers, and merchant acquirers. The purpose ofproviding this access is to provide transparency to the benefits beingprovided to members who are cardholders by operation of the loyaltysystem 26.

Loyalty system 26 further includes a reporting utility or transactiondata reporting 36, which may be further linked to the cardholderbenefits processing utility 30 and database 32 to provide variousreports of interest to merchants, merchant acquirers, card issuers andcardholders. For example, transaction data reporting 36 may permitmerchants, merchant acquirers and card issuers to generate reports onmeasured performance of benefits or incentives provided to them by theloyalty system 26 in their sphere of interest. One of the purposes ofthe reporting utility 36 is to enable the organizations linked to theloyalty system 26 to calibrate their involvement (e.g. by merchants orcard issuers calibrating the benefits that they provide) targeted tocardholders, and to review the results of their loyalty programsmanagement by loyalty system 26.

Loyalty system 26 may include a loyalty program module 22 which may be ahardware and software tool to manage the various loyalty programsmanaged by loyalty system 26. Loyalty programs may be adapted to beparticular to one or more card issuers or merchants, or a combinationthereof.

In example embodiments described herein, card issuer system 38 isconfigured to include tools operable by card issuers to design andimplement their own loyalty programs, including cross-promotionalprograms in conjunction with merchants. The card issuer system 38 may beoperated to design and implement loyalty programs specific to aparticular card issuer using card issuer interface 50.

In example embodiments described herein, merchant system 40 is providedwith tools to design and implement their own loyalty programs, viewreports regarding their loyalty programs, design and implement their ownbenefits or incentives, including cross-promotional programs andbenefits in conjunction with card issuers. The merchant system 40 maydesign and implement loyalty programs and incentives using merchantinterface 52.

Loyalty system 26 may be operable with any financial card or mobilepayment device that permits tracking of transaction information throughcard processing systems. Financial cards such as credit cards, debitcards, INTERAC™ cards, stored value cards, or mobile payment device(collectively referred to as “financial cards” for convenience) may bedesignated by a BIN number range.

The BIN range identifies the financial card type and the issuingfinancial institution (e.g. card issuers). Card issuers typically marketcard types to certain segments of the population based upon demographicdata such as credit scores, income, age, location, and anticipated carduse. Consequently, the BIN range may also represent a market ordemographic segment of cardholders. For example, co-branded businesstravel cards may be marketed towards persons and organizations thattypically utilize the specialized features of a travel card, such aspoints for travel and/or specialized services (e.g. travel insurance,lost baggage coverage) to facilitate needs and wants of persons whotravel regularly. Another card, such as a TOYS R US™ card, for example,may be provided to young families. Each financial card therefore may beused to target particular consumer needs.

The unique BIN range associated with each financial card may enable theuse of a particular financial card to be identified within the loyaltysystem 26 (below). This in turn enables merchants to target particulargroups of members based on demographic data extrapolated from thefinancial card that they are using (by operation of the BIN rangeassociated with their card), or more particularly demographic dataassociated with a sub-set of cardholders using a particular financialcard, possibly as communicated by the card issuer. As will be describedherein, loyalty system 26 may recommend incentives tailored to segmentsof customers, where the recommendation may be based on BIN range andother attributes of customers, such as spending habits, interests,needs, wants, preferred or associated charities, social habits, etc.

Embodiment described herein may utilize the BIN range of co-brandedcards to develop additional transactions and associated incentives toselected groups of card holders and promote the use of certain financialcards for the transactions for the benefit of: cardholders, merchants,financial card issuers and merchant acquirers.

In accordance with the embodiments described herein, a card issuersystem 38 and thereby one or more of its cardholders, are linked to theloyalty system 26. The loyalty programs provided by this loyalty system26 may run in parallel with other loyalty and rewards programs. Inaccordance with embodiments described herein, costs of implementationmay be very low for card issuer system 38 as it may interface withloyalty system 26 to access loyalty engine 30, etc. The loyalty system26 is operable, via network 10 for example, to engage in real time datacommunications with a card issuer system 38 and/or a merchant system 40.Accordingly, seamless data flows between these systems can beestablished in order to enable the capture of financial transactionsdata reflective completed transaction, and cardholder data, and to alsoenable the accrual of benefits or incentives based on data provided tothe loyalty system 26 by each of the card issuer system 38 and themerchant acquirer system 40.

For example, transaction data and cardholder data may be transmitted toloyalty system 26 from one or other of card issuer system 38 or merchantacquirer system 40 by way of secured transmission channels establishedin network 10. Such secured transmission channels may be establishedusing conventional transmission protocols such as SFTP, HTTPS, or thelike, which may implement conventional encryption techniques. Data maybe transferred in a variety of formats, including for example,comma-delimited text (CSV) files, SQL data files, JSON data files, orthe like.

Transaction data and cardholder data may be transmitted to loyaltysystem 26 from time to time, e.g., as new transactions are conducted oras new cards are issued. Data may be transmitted accordingly to apredetermined schedule, e.g., hourly, daily, weekly, etc. Data may alsobe transmitted whenever a set of data reaches a pre-determined size,e.g., whenever a certain number of new transactions have been conducted.

Table I below provides a summary of an example data format of thetransaction data received by loyalty system 26, in accordance with oneexample embodiment.

TABLE I Example Transaction Data Format Data Field Contents CardholderIDIdentifier unique to the cardholder conducting the transaction (assignedby card issuer) CardNumber Card number, or a subset of the card numberdigits TransactionID Identifier unique to the transaction MerchantIDIdentifier unique to the merchant conducting the transaction CardTypeIdentifier unique to the type of card used for the transaction (e.g.,credit, debit) AuthenticationTimeDate Time and date the transaction wasauthenticated TransactionTimeDate Time and date the transaction wasinitiated CurrencyID Identifier unique to the currency of thetransaction

Table II below provides a summary of an example data format of thecardholder data received by loyalty system 26, in accordance with oneexample embodiment.

TABLE II Example Cardholder Data Format Data Field Contents CardholderIDIdentifier unique to the cardholder (assigned by card issuer) CardNumberCard number, or a subset of the card number digits Name Cardholder'sname DOB Cardholder's date of birth Gender Cardholder's genderCardStatus Status of cardholder's card (active or inactive) AddressCardholder's address

Once transaction data and cardholder data have been received, the loyalsystem 26 processes the data to identify new transactions and newcardholders, based on the TransactionID and the CardholderID,respectively. Data corresponding to new transactions and new cardholdersare then stored as new data records in database 32. Database 32 may alsobe updated to reflect any changes in information for cardholders suchas, for example, changes in contact details.

Loyalty system 26 is not only a loyalty system used by merchants butalso becomes a secondary loyalty system for the card issuer for itscardholders. Loyalty system 26 is operable to provide system tools forthe card issuer to receive payments from the merchants in connectionwith transactions between the merchants and the cardholders of the cardissuer who are registered with the loyalty system 26. The card issuermay receive payment from the merchants indirectly through interchangefees collected by a merchant acquirer from the merchants at the time atransaction is processed on a financial card. In this particularembodiment the card issuer can receive payments and/or points fromloyalty system merchants for transactions made by cardholders.

The card issuer may propose to encourage a specific demographic (asdefined by a BIN range) to join the loyalty program by tailoringbenefits and incentives to the specific segment of cardholders. Loyaltysystem 26 may recommend incentives based on attributes of the segment ofcardholders. The merchants in the loyalty system 26 may agree to provideadditional payments to the card issuer in the form of points or cash fortransactions between merchants and cardholders of a selected BIN range(e.g. targeted segment) that have registered their financial card withthe loyalty system 26 or opted in to the applicable loyalty program. Byoperation of the loyalty system 26, merchants may have the ability tovary the amount or the percentage of the transaction accrued and paid tothe card issuer, or some other aspect of the benefit provided. Thepayment may be in the form of cash or redeemable points. The loyaltysystem 26 is operable to calculate the amount accrued to be paid to thecard issuer for each cardholder who is a member by each merchant. Thereporting facility provides visibility to the card issuer and themerchant in regard to the amounts accrued and subsequently paid at theend of the measurement period.

The amounts transferred to the card issuer may be re-distributed by thecard issuer to the cardholders in the form of extra points fortransactions completed or the card issuer may retain a percentage of theamount transferred, for example, as an administration fee. In otherwords, the amounts transferred can then be accrued and distributed inaccordance with the card issuer's own rules therefor.

In some circumstances the card issuer and the merchants of the loyaltysystem 26 may choose to offer special offers/prizes (e.g. incentives)through the merchants and the loyalty system 26. The card issue ormerchant, through the loyalty system 26, may configure the conditionsunder which this occurs. Typically, the incentives are associated withconditional transactions with merchants (e.g. the purchase of aparticular good or service is required in order to receive the specialoffer or prize). This encourages cardholders to conduct transactionswith merchants. When a registered cardholder enters into such atransaction with a merchant in connection with the loyalty system 26, anamount owed by the card issuer to the merchant is recorded. At the endof the reporting period the system aggregates the amounts owed tomerchants by the card issuer and settlement is made and thenreimbursement funds are distributed to the respective merchants.

Loyalty system 26 may result in more transactions on the particularregistered financial card of the card issuer, moreindividuals/businesses owning and using a financial card with aparticular BIN range(s) and distribution of the cost of incentivesprovided to the customer by the card issuer and the merchant within theloyalty system 26. The amounts owed the merchants or to cardholder/cardissuer are tracked within the loyalty system 26 for the accountingperiod. Further, loyalty system 26 may recommend incentives particularlytailored to targeted segments of cardholders and potentially cardholdersto further increase particular transactions. The recommended incentivesand associated transactions are likely to be of interest to the targetedsegment based on data mining and correlations of cardholder (andpotential customer and cardholder) attributes.

The end result may be the accrual of benefits and incentives to thebenefits account 34, which is then disbursed on a periodic basis to theapplicable card issuers.

The operator of the loyalty system 26 may enter into a contract with afinancial institution that has a plurality of co-branded cards and seeknew customer base potential through the financial institution'sco-branded card partners that have an interest in increasingtransactions on their co-branded card by attracting merchants. In thiscase, it may be a business limitation that products and servicesassociated with the loyalty program for the most part will not competewith the co-branded partner's business, i.e. that the businessesinvolved be complementary. The financial institution contacts andmotivates its customer base (cardholders) to join the loyalty programand thereby provide the loyalty system 26 with a stream of new members.As stated earlier, the members joining the loyalty system 26 throughthis referral source are associated with their co-branded card(s) withinthe loyalty system 26, each co-branded card being identified bydifferent BIN number ranges and thereby historical demographics, creditscore ranges and preferences associated with the particular card.Cardholders may individually join the loyalty program and register theircard.

The loyalty system 26 may use the BIN number range and any associateddemographic and credit score, along with geography and any customerpreferences (e.g. cardholder attributes) to recommend special offers forloyalty programs of merchants to the individual cardholders (forexample: unique product/service offerings to specifically tailored tocustomers). The loyalty system 26 is operable when a member with aco-branded card that is within a suitable BIN number range enters into atransaction with a merchant to record the applicable transactioninformation as cardholder attributes, aggregate the transactioninformation, and supply measured results to both the merchant and thecard issuer.

Typically there is comity of interest between the merchants and the cardissuers, in that merchants will be willing to provide the greatestincentives to the cardholders that the card issuers are most interestedin providing incentives to. Accordingly, from a card issuer perspective,loyalty system 26 provides an efficient mechanism for maximizingbenefits being provided to their preferred customers by having themregister with a loyalty program where merchants, in the interest ofpromoting their own products/services, will automatically provideoptimal benefits to these preferred customers.

For example, a new member, joining through a co-branded card reference,transacts with the registered financial card, and in the embodimentwhere the merchant and/or the co-branded issuer supply the additionalbenefit (which, typically being supplied through the normal co-brandedcard channels, consists of points, discounts or cash back). The amountpaid by the merchant is usually based upon on one or more of thefollowing: (1) the amount of the transaction; (2) the value of thetransaction; and/or (3) the value of the transaction less an amount thatwas set as a pre-condition.

The card issuers may benefit financially from the transactions involvingtheir financial cards in numerous ways: (1) cardholders carrying creditcard balances; (2) maintaining customers using the incentives andselling other products/services to such customers; (3) acquiring newcustomers for such products/services using incentives; (4) financialincentives provided to financial institutions in exchange forpromotional access to their customers; (5) interchange fees associatedwith transactions involving the financial cards; (6) yearly card fees;(7) transaction fees charged to the cardholder (if applicable); (8)currency exchange fees; (9) fees payable to the card issuer by merchants(generally tied to BIN ranges); (10) augmentation of card issuer'sloyalty program (reduction of costs associated with card issuer'sloyalty program, i.e. replacement of card issuer paid benefits withmerchant paid benefits; and (11) revenue from merchant acquirer foradditional transactions involving the merchant and the merchantacquirer; (12) customer tailored incentives through recommendationengine.

The merchant acquirer may receive the benefits of: (1) additionalmerchants who join their processing system to increase their access to aBIN range of cardholders; (2) additional revenue from merchants(participation fees); (3) increased revenue from additional merchanttransactions; (4) ability to differentiate over other merchant acquirersbased on the ability to provide access to the loyalty system. Merchantsystem 40 may also refer to a merchant acquirer system 40.

Loyalty system 26 provides for a linkage of a data between the merchantsystems 40 and card issuers systems 38, and thereby their cardholders,facilitated through the loyalty system 26 technology that enables a cardissuer to include its cardholders in a secondary loyalty system thatsupplements any card issuer point system. Although only one card issuersystem 38 is shown in FIG. 1 for simplicity, there may be multiple cardissuer systems 38 connected to loyalty system 26. Although only onemerchant system 40 (or merchant acquirer system 40) is shown in FIG. 1for simplicity, there may be multiple merchant systems 40 connected toloyalty system 26.

Loyalty and customer acquisition programs may be required to continuallyacquire new members, preferably at a low cost, e.g. through organicgrowth or through a partnership with various customer sources, includingcard issuers. Card issuer system 38 may retain cardholder databases oftransaction information and other cardholder benefits, which may includedata from other loyalty program operators and with participatingmerchants. Loyalty system 26 may access the cardholder databases todetect cardholder attributes in order to recommend incentives.

In the card transaction process, the card issuer generally has access tothe following transaction information: (1) cardholder name; (2) cardnumber; (3) date of transaction; (4) merchant ID; (5) amount ofpurchase; and (6) BIN number. Other information may also be accessiblesuch as demographic, geographic, and credit score information relatingthe cardholder. This information may be stored in cardholder databasesand accessed by loyalty system 26.

Some financial institutions have both card issuing and merchantacquiring business lines and loyalty system 26 may enable the two linesto work together for common benefit. The merchant acquirers may haveaccess to following additional information that may not be generallyavailable to the card issuer: (1) the time of the transaction; (2) theterminal ID (within a merchant system); and (3) the fee rates chargedthe merchant based upon the financial card and how the financial card isused (e.g. internet transaction vs. verified signature). Loyalty system26 may access this information (e.g. cardholder attributes) to recommendincentives.

Loyalty system 26 is operable to link the card issuer, the cardholder,the merchant acquirer and the merchants such that the loyalty system 26is operable to match time of day data (or other common variables) of atransaction with other information provided by the card issuer to theloyalty system 26. This functionality allows merchants to offer time ofday or otherwise tailored special offers (e.g. incentives) to specificcardholders who are members of the loyalty system.

Loyalty system 26 is operable to match the terminal ID informationobtained from the merchant processor with the transaction informationobtained from the card issuer. This allows a merchant and/or a cardissuer to tailor benefits to specific geographic locations, and enablesloyalty system 26 to recommend incentives for specific geographiclocations and other cardholder attributes.

Loyalty system 26 enables each of the merchants, members and cardissuers to track the accrual of benefits by means of financial cardtransactions that in connection with the loyalty system 26 result in theaccrual of loyalty benefits (e.g. incentives).

Loyalty system 26 is operable to store the data items mentioned above(and other similar data items) to database 32 and apply same againsttransactions between participating members and participating merchants.Loyalty system 26 may use the data items to recommend incentives andcorresponding transactions. Loyalty system 26 may also use the dataitems to identify events or trends and to provide alert notifications ofthe identified events or trends to participating merchant.

The following provides an example transaction process. A cardholder whois a member transacts with a merchant using their financial card. Themerchant transaction data is then usually settled by the merchantacquirer. The member transaction data (e.g. cardholder attributes) isthen preferably transmitted to the loyalty system 26. This membertransaction data usually includes the data items described above. Thisdata is then stored to database 32. The rules defined for the cardholderwithin the loyalty system are then applied to the merchant transactiondata to recommend incentives, or to identify event or trends, asdetailed below.

As stated earlier, an agreement is entered into between the card issuerand the operator of the loyalty system 26 on behalf of the merchants.The agreement may extend to one or more accounting periods. Theagreement generally establishes the expected relationship and flow offunds between the financial institution and the merchants based onanticipated transactions, as well as the additional incentives that willbe provided to the cardholders for transactions linked to the loyaltysystem 26 and who will be the party covering the costs of suchadditional incentives and how. The agreement generally covers group offinancial cards, identified by a BIN range. Also as stated earlier,cardholders are encouraged by the card issuer to join the loyaltyprogram for additional cash rewards, points and/or special offers.

Prior to the beginning of an accounting period, and after cardholdershave registered their particular financial card with the loyalty system,the agreement between the cardholder and the loyalty system 26 may beimplemented by the merchants who set the offers and incentives that willbe made to cardholders of certain BIN ranges (these are examples of themerchant rules).

When a cardholder transacts with one of merchants under the applicableloyalty program, the loyalty system 26 is operable to review thebenefits applicable to the BIN number and either 1) accrue thepoints/cash discount (less the administration amount paid to the cardissuer) to the cardholder from the transaction, by reflecting suchaccrual in the benefits account for the cardholder. The cardholder isnotified of the award of points, and the card issuer is notified of theaccrual set aside by the loyalty system 26 to be paid by the merchant atthe end of the accounting period. These amounts are separate from theamounts paid to the card issuer through the interchange system, unless aspecial rate for the loyalty system 26 has been established and appliedby the merchant acquirer.

The loyalty system 26 accrues the points/special cash back awards foreach cardholder and what is owed the card issuer by the merchant.Merchants generally pay cash or cash in lieu of points as a reward tothe card issuer. Different incentives/rewards can apply to different BINranges by a single merchant or by a group of merchants.

In summary, the merchant rules applicable for a specific accrual periodare applied so as to update the benefit account 34 for the particularcardholder, for example. Generally speaking, the loyalty system 26 isoperable to, after an accrual period has come to an end, to verify theaccrued amounts in the benefit accounts 34. These can then be accessedand displayed by members or cardholders.

After an accrual period is closed, the loyalty system 26 may then permitmembers to access the loyalty system 26 to engage in a number oftransactions in connection with their accrued benefits such asredemption, conversion of fees to points etc.

A particular process for conversion of fees to points will be describedas an illustrative example with reference to the point conversionutility 54. The point conversion utility 54 enables enhancement of acard issuer's existing loyalty programs based upon points or cash backcardholder benefits created by cardholder use in connection with aloyalty program and provided by incentives offered to cardholder. Thepoint conversion utility 54 may allow the card issuer to reward theircardholders in the same format as under their existing cardholderprogram. These points and rewards are examples of incentives.

For instance, some existing financial cards have points or cash rewardsystems or a combination of both to promote financial card use. Thecardholder may accumulate points and cash rewards for later use. Theloyalty system 26 allows for the card issuer to take all or a portion ofexisting fees developed from financial card use and apply them tocardholder points or cash. Alternatively, the loyalty system 26 could beutilized by card issuer to create an additional source of revenue fromthe merchant fees by not converting all of the collected fees and givingthe benefit to the financial card holders.

The fee and point information may be transferred to the card issuer at“X” days after the end of an accumulation period. The information islater integrated by existing financial card issuer software toconsolidate the point and/or fees that are passed on to the cardholder.

The conversion from points to fees is accommodated by comparing thetransaction data of identified cardholders against rule-sets created andmaintained by the card issuer. The rule-sets may, for example, containthe following information regarding transaction data: 1. TransactionAmount 2. Transaction Date 3. Transaction Time 4. Merchant ID 5. CardHolder ID 6. Card BIN number.

An example of a card issuer rule-set includes: Card Holder Bin number“1111” minimum qualifying transaction with Merchant “A” is $100.00; NoMaximum qualifying transaction or conversion restrictions exist; Thetransaction must occur between 00:00:00-00:07:00 EST; The transactionmust occur between Jan. 1, 2004 and Jan. 15, 2004; Card Issuer wouldlike to give card holder 1.0 point for every dollar transacted withmerchant “A”; Merchant “A” Card Holder Id 0-10000 Card Holder BIN Number“2222”; Minimum qualifying transaction with Merchant “A” is $100.00;Maximum qualifying transaction amount is $1000.00; Transaction mustoccur between 00:00:00-00:07:00 EST; Transaction must occur between Jan.1, 2004 and Jan. 15, 2004; Card Issuer would like to give card holder1.0 point for every dollar transacted with merchant “A”; Merchant “A”Card Holder Id 0-10000; Card Holder BIN Number “3333”; Min. qualifyingtransaction with Merchant “A” is $100.00; Maximum qualify transactionamount is $10,000.00; Transaction must occur between 00:00:00-00:07:00EST; Transaction must occur between Jan. 1, 2004 and Jan. 15, 2004; CardIssuer would like to record card holder $0.01 benefits for every dollartransacted with merchant “A”; and Merchant “A” Card Holder Id 0-10000.

In another example of the related transaction detail: Card Holder BINnumber “1111”; Transaction Amount: $104.00; Transaction Date: Jan. 1,2004; Transaction Time: 00:00:12; Merchant: “A”; and Card Holder ID: 1.

The example result may be that system 26 would calculate 100 points forthe transaction detail and record the transaction information andrelated conversion amount 100 points as cardholder attributes indatabase 32.

In yet another example of the processing of a transaction: TransactionDetail Card Holder BIN Number “2222” Transaction Amount: $90.00Transaction Date: Jan. 1, 2004 Transaction Time: 00:00:12 Merchant: “B”Card Holder ID: 999999.

The example result may be that system 26 would NOT create any points forthe transaction because the transaction failed to meet the criteria forpoint conversion for the transaction detail as Merchant “B” is not partof the conversion rule-sets and the card holder is not part of therule-set.

In yet another example of the processing of a transaction: TransactionDetail Card Holder BIN Number “3333” Transaction Amount: $900.00Transaction Date: Jan. 1, 2004 Transaction Time: 00:00:12 Merchant: “A”Card Holder ID: 999999.

The example result may be that system 26 would record $0.90 of benefitassociated with the above transaction information tied to the cardholder ID number of “999999”.

An example process in connection with the generation of reports based onthe contents of database 32 will now be described. A systemadministrator of the operator of the loyalty system 26 may accesscertain reports in connection with merchant activity in connection withparticular BIN ranges. Similar processes and system implementations maybe used to generate other reports of information accessible to cardissuers, merchants, members or merchant acquirers. The loyalty system 26is operable to generate reports for card issuers to track the use andmonitor the results of financial card use with identified merchants.

For instance a card issuer may wish to view the status of conversion ofpoints to fees. The loyalty system 26 may allow for a SystemAdministrator to log in and generate reports regarding the amount offees that have been converted to points to monitor the effectiveness ofthe applicable loyalty program.

As an illustrative and non-limiting example, the System Administratorenters the following parameters for report generation on behalf of thecard issuer: 1) Start Date 2) End Date 3) BIN Number 4) FinancialInstitution ID 5) Merchant ID 6) Transaction Time 7) TransactionTerminal ID 8) Report Type. The loyalty system 26 may return the dataassociated with the transaction(s) to monitor the points and feescollected and converted to allow the card issuer to view data regardingthe status of the system.

A card issuer may want to know which merchants are supporting aparticular financial card to judge the effectiveness of the businessrelationship between the merchant and the cardholders. By examining thetransaction information the card issuer can judge the effectiveness ofhaving particular merchants within the loyalty system, based oncollected merchant fees. A cardholder may elect to charge the merchantadditional fee amounts as the merchant receives strong support from thecardholders of a particular card issuer.

The described reporting functionality can also be used to track the datanecessary to integrate the data of points and fees held within theloyalty system 26 for a given time period. A card issuer may elect toview the information to keep current information regarding benefits thatare due to the cardholders.

By examining the data of accumulated points and fees a card issuer mayelect to alter the conversion rules to give more benefits to thecardholders and thereby create more demand for a financial card use at aparticular merchant(s). This type of reporting can also be used to provethe value to the merchants and cardholders derived from card use at anidentified merchant(s).

Merchants may generally view only the information regarding thetransactions that were made with identified cardholders. The loyaltysystem 26 may allow for a System Administrator to see the followinginformation: 1) Time range of transactions 2) Date range of transactions3) BIN Range of transactions 4) Summary amounts of transactions.

The loyalty system 26 may generally restrict the information that themerchant can view by providing summary data only. The summary dataprotects the cardholders from direct exposure of private cardholderinformation, while allowing the merchant to view the status of theprogram. The loyalty system 26 may use summary data to recommendincentives or raw data.

For instance a merchant may wish to know how certain cards identified byBIN number are contributing to his sales. By comparing this informationwith historical reports and current internal customer payment methods amerchant can judge which financial card types are providing the mostbenefit for his organization.

An example process for customizing loyalty programs involvingcardholders will now be described, and specifically a systemadministrator for the operator of the loyalty system 26 may adjust theparameters associated with reward generation and change incentives(based on e.g. recommended incentives) in connection with specificmembers.

The cardholder benefits processing utility 30 may be further configuredfor processing financial transactions (or transaction utility (notshown) that is operable to conduct electronic transactions betweenloyalty system 26 and the card issuer system 38) possibly also betweenthe loyalty system 26 and the merchant acquirer system 40.

The cost of acquiring new customers is generally quite high, and this isa cost that merchants tend to monitor very closely. Particularly if amerchant's relationship with card issuers by operation of loyalty system26 permits the merchant to acquire a new customer through the cardissuer, merchants will generally be willing to provide to the cardholderand/or to the card issuer relatively significant incentives inconsideration of obtaining the new customer. Loyalty system 26 mayenable a merchant to target incentives to particular sub-groups ofcardholders, depending on their interest (e.g. cardholder attributes) tomerchant.

For example, a cardholder whose BIN number is associated with theprogram may go to a merchant who is also associated with the program.Within the loyalty system 26, the cardholder may be given a code to bepresented at the merchant's location that reflects a discount offer(e.g. incentive). Upon payment, the cardholder receives a discount onmonies owed. The cardholder in the above example is also given anadditional item (e.g. a further incentive) from the merchant's inventoryas recognition for the cardholder being a member of the applicableloyalty program.

After the cardholder transaction has been completed, the transactiondata is relayed to the loyalty system 26 and the cardholder benefitsprocessing utility 34 is operable to automatically offer prize entriesas a follow up to the cardholder's purchase (e.g. a further incentive),based on the loyalty program rules defined by the merchant.

After the cardholder transaction has been completed the transaction datamay be relayed to the loyalty system 26. The loyalty system 26 definesin accordance with a particular loyalty program a set of rules tocomplement existing points programs by processing the transaction data(e.g. identified merchant, amount of transaction, date of transaction,time of transaction) to convert the transaction into points inconnection with the applicable card issuer's BIN range point program andbased upon parameters set by each participating merchant. For instance,the system 26 may convert transaction incentives or prizes within theloyalty program to points provided through the card issuer to thecardholder based on a pre-determined formula (usually based on anarrangement between the card issuer and the merchants, facilitated bythe operator of the loyalty system). The loyalty system 26 would forexample convert a $100.00 spent by a cardholder under a loyalty programinto 100 points if the transaction was completed between the hours of00:00:00 and 12:00:00 Monday through Friday and 50 points at any othertime for the particular card used at a particular merchant.

The cardholder in the above example visits a merchant participating inthe loyalty system 26. The cardholder chooses to use the financial cardthat is registered with the loyalty system 26 over other financialcards, and completes a transaction. The loyalty system 26 identifies themerchant, the date, the amount and optionally the time of day and theterminal ID and also establishes any accrued benefits including points,prizes or discounted offers. The card issuer in this case receivesadditional revenue from increased card use as the cardholder chooses theregistered card issuers' card over another financial card.

The loyalty system 26 allows for the existing point programs operated bythe card issuer to be identified and supported within the loyalty system26. This occurs when, after conversion of incentives (for example) intopoints, the card issuer then applies additional incentives through itsown point system thereby creating an enhanced points program.

It is possible that the card issuer would charge the operator of theloyalty system 26 (or the merchants themselves) for access to BIN rangesof cardholders, and other attributes of cardholders. The charges coulddepend on the efforts expended by the card issuer to encouragecardholders to enroll in the loyalty program. Or, the card issuer mayelect to charge differing amounts for loyalty system 26 access dependingon the demographics and other attributes of particular cardholders.

A card issuer increases its revenue by offering incentives to consumersto use a particular financial card with a greater number of merchants.Merchants associated with the loyalty system 26 provide incrementalincentives to cardholders in certain BIN ranges. This way the cardissuer and the loyalty system 26 cooperate to bring more business to thecommon group.

The card issuers may elect to charge the cardholders an annual fee tocarry a financial card that is associated with a particular BIN range,and thereby also eligible for certain richer benefits in connection witha loyalty program. The additional annual fees represent an importantsource of additional revenue to the card issuer.

As previously stated, a merchant belonging to the loyalty system 26 maychoose to offer rewards/incentives based upon time of day and date. Theincentives may also be based on a particular good or service. Themerchant's merchant acquirer provides selected information relating toparticular BIN ranges, transactions, dates and times (e.g. attributes).The loyalty system 26 identifies the merchant, the time of day and thedate and applies differential incentives either through the loyaltysystem 26 or in the form of differential points transferred to the cardissuer for the cardholder.

The merchant through the loyalty system 26 contracts with the merchantacquirer for anticipated additional transactions from a particular setof BIN numbers. The merchant acquirer is rewarded for the service in theform of a transaction fee or monthly fee through the loyalty system. Themerchant may pay a differential rate for an access to a particular BINas the cardholders to a particular BIN may offer a greater opportunityfor transactions.

A merchant acquirer may realize additional revenues due to differingtransaction fees associated with differing BIN number acceptance as aform of payment by a participating merchant. The merchant acquirer mayelect to charge differing transaction fees for acceptance of cardswithin certain BIN range of a participating card issuer.

Loyalty system 26 may provide an opportunity for merchants, and for cardissuers if they are willing, to efficiently operate and maintain theirown loyalty program that provides the ability to share customers throughcross-promotion between card issuers and merchants, and alsocross-promotion between merchants involving cardholders who becomemembers. Loyalty system 26 may enable card issuers and merchants toobtain direct customer feedback and to perceive measured resultsregarding customer transactions at each merchant, including bases onanalysis of BIN number ranges by operation of the loyalty system 26.

The card issuers may be provided with an economic interest to motivatethe cardholders to become members of the loyalty system 26 and totransact with merchants in order for the cardholders who are members toobtain benefits from the merchants (or from the card issuer based on anarrangement with the merchants). Recommended incentives tailored to atarget segment may be a mechanism to increase transactions bycardholders. Again, customers of a co-branded card for example may beidentified within the loyalty system 26 by means of their financial cardBIN range number through the registration process, thereby enablingsubsequent transactions involving particular cardholders and particularmerchants to be tracked and measured results to be proven to cardissuers and merchants alike.

Benefits or incentives may be accrued on behalf of members (includingmembers who are cardholders) in a number of ways. The benefitsthemselves can vary. For example, pre-set benefit application or paymentrates are associated with particular transactions associated with theloyalty system 26.

Within the loyalty system 26, merchants may be motivated to develop newand innovative loyalty programs (through the use of recommendedincentives) that will automatically be accessible to cardholders. Thissaves the card issuer the time and resources generally required todevise new loyalty programs and enter into associated arrangements withtheir partners, often separately for each program.

Loyalty system 26 may generate financial transactions and/or customersfor financial institutions or merchants, or both.

Loyalty system 26 may provide flexibility in the arrangements made bythe merchants, or in fact in some bases between the merchants and thecard issuers, as it relates to the benefits provided to cardholders whobecome members. These arrangements can define the pre-determinedbenefits associated with particular transactions, e.g. a per transactionbenefit to the cardholder or in fact to the card issuer. As such,loyalty system 26 may provide a potential source of new revenue for thecard issuer to the extent that not all of the benefits earmarked forcardholders' transactions is actually passed on to the cardholders.

It may be open to the card issuer to also provide benefits or incentivesto cardholders in connection with transactions associated with theloyalty system. For example, card issuers may want to enhance incentivesavailable from merchants in connection with specific transactions withincentives that they are themselves providing because for example theimpact of client retention of a preferred customer who is a golfer mightbe enhanced if an incentive from the card issuer is providedspecifically in connection with a transaction that brings happiness tothe golfer, i.e. golf. The loyalty system 26 can assist with incentivesmay recommending incentives for target segment. Alternatively, the cardissuer could “top up” benefits provided by merchants, thereby enhancingthe merchant's relationship with the cardholder who is a member, if themerchant is a customer of the card issuer or a related entity of thecard issuer.

Consequently, the loyalty system 26, at little or no additional cost,can be used to generate additional new business for the card issuer.

Loyalty system 26 may effectively permit some merchants who wouldotherwise not be able to enter into co-branded card type arrangements(e.g. because of startup costs or because of the merchant is a regionalretailer where the merchant might not otherwise be attractive to a largefinancial institution) to provide loyalty programs. Accordingly, loyaltysystem 26 may allow regional merchants to compete better againstnational chains that may have more resources to dedicate to buildingloyalty programs.

Loyalty system 26 may provide a loyalty program with a low cost way toacquire customers and pay for them over future transactions. It may alsoprovide the co-branded partner the ability to expand transactions on thecurrent card base, both from the initial referrals and subsequenttransactions resulting from cross promotional offers within the loyaltysystem 26 among other merchants.

A financial card can be moved to the front of the wallet to be used formore transactions, where the cardholder is motivated to use the cardbased on incentives that are recommended for the particular cardholderbased on associated attributes.

Cardholders of selected co-branded financial cards may become memberswhere the co-branded partners' service or product is not reallycompetitive with the loyalty system merchants. Accordingly, use ofco-branded cards in connection with the described loyalty system 26 mayprotect transaction market share for both the card issuer and co-brandedpartners' market share.

The card issuer, the co-branded partner and the merchants of the loyaltyprogram may increase their customer transactions through sharingcustomers.

Flexibility may be provided to card issuers and merchants to devise,implement, and then measure the effectiveness of, variouscross-promotional initiatives, can dramatically increase the returns oninvestment of card issuers and merchants alike, in connection with theircustomer retention and customer acquisition activities. Further, theloyalty system 26 may facilitate this process by providing recommendedincentives for various loyalty programs.

Other modifications and extensions may be made to loyalty system 26. Forexample, various security methods and technologies for restrictingaccess to resources of the loyalty system 26 to those authorized to doso by the operator of the loyalty system 26 may be used. Loyalty system26 may use various existing and future technologies to processtransaction data by operation of the transaction utility 38. Loyaltysystem 26 may provide various tools and interfaces for interacting withthe loyalty system. The system 26 may also allow for robust reportingwhich may include comparative reports of member affinity or oftransaction history with participating merchants. In other words, membertransaction history may be different for differing groups of membersbased on member affinity.

As noted, loyalty system 26 may be interconnected with card issuersystem 38. Card issuer system 32 may be configured with variouscomputing applications, such as a points/rewards program 64, cardholderregistration 68, card issuer reporting tool 66, and a data storagedevice with cardholder and transaction data 70. The points/rewardsprogram 64 may manage loyalty programs offered by card issuer system 38independently or in conjunction with loyalty system 26. Existing loyaltydata tool 58 may interact with points/rewards program 64 regardingloyalty programs offered by card issuer system 38. The points/rewardsprogram 64 may populate cardholder and transaction data 70 based on datacollected from loyalty programs. Cardholder registration 68 may enablecardholders to register for financial cards with card issuer. Cardholderregistration 68 may populate cardholder and transaction data 70 based ondata collected from registration. The card issuer reporting tool 66 maygenerate reports based on cardholder and transaction data 70 and datamaintained by loyalty system 26 as part of database 32. Database 32 maymaintain a copy of cardholder and transaction data 70, or may containseparate data. Data scrub utility 56 may normalize, scrub, convert andperform other operations on data received from card issuer system 38.Loyalty program module 22 may be used to create and manage variousloyalty programs for card issuer system 38 and may interact withpoints/rewards program 64.

Loyalty system 26 may also be interconnected with a merchant system 40.Merchant system 40 may be configured with various computingapplications, such as merchant reporting tool 66 for generating reportsregarding loyalty programs and for displaying interfaces received frommerchant interface 52 to create, customize, and manage loyalty programsand incentives. A computing application may correspond to hardware andsoftware modules comprising computer executable instructions toconfigure physical hardware to perform various functions and discernibleresults. A computing application may be a computer software or hardwareapplication designed to help the user to perform specific functions, andmay include an application plug-in, a widget, instant messagingapplication, mobile device application, e-mail application, onlinetelephony application, java application, web page, or web objectresiding, executing, running or rendered on the merchant system 40.

Merchant system 40 is operable to authenticate merchants (using a login,unique identifier, and password for example) prior to providing accessto applications and loyalty system 40. Merchant system 40 d may serveone user or multiple merchants. For example, merchant system 40 may be amerchant acquirer system 40 serving multiple merchants. Althoughmerchant system 40 is depicted with various components in FIG. 3 as anon-limiting illustrative example, merchant system 40 may containadditional or different components, such as point of sale system orother transaction processing system.

Merchant system 40 may include one or more input devices, such as akeyboard, mouse, camera, touch screen and a microphone, and may alsoinclude one or more output devices such as a display screen and aspeaker. Merchant system 40 has a network interface in order tocommunicate with other components, to serve an application and otherapplications, and perform other computing applications by connecting tonetwork (or multiple networks) capable of carrying data including theInternet, Ethernet, plain old telephone service (POTS) line, publicswitch telephone network (PSTN), integrated services digital network(ISDN), digital subscriber line (DSL), coaxial cable, fiber optics,satellite, mobile, wireless (e.g. Wi-Fi, WiMAX), SS7 signaling network,fixed line, local area network, wide area network, and others, includingany combination of these. Although only one merchant system 40 is shownfor clarity, there may be multiple merchant systems 40 or groups ofmerchant systems 40 distributed over a wide geographic area andconnected via, e.g. network 10.

Merchant system 40 includes data storage devices storing merchant data72 particular to the merchant, such as geographic location, inventoryrecords, historical records, and the like. Data storage devices may alsostore customer and transaction data 74 such as customer names,addresses, contact information, target potential customers, transactiondetails, and so on.

Loyalty system 26 may include a merchant interface 52 for interactingwith merchant system 40 and generating various interfaces for display onmerchant system 40. The merchant interface 52 may provide a mechanismfor merchant system 40 to create, customize, and manage loyalty programsand incentives. Data scrub utility 56 may normalize, scrub, convert andperform other operations on data received from merchant system 40.

Card issuer system 38 and merchant system 40 may each be implemented asone or more computing devices having an architecture and componentssimilar to those detailed above for loyalty system 26. In someembodiments, one or more of loyalty system 26, card issuer system 38,and merchant system 40 may be integrated such that they reside on asingle computing device, and communicate using intra-devicecommunication channels (e.g., inter-process communication).

Reference will now be made to FIG. 6A which provides a flowchart diagramof an example method 100 for generating recommended incentives and/oralert notifications of developing events or trends. Recommendationengine 60 (FIG. 3) may be configured to implement method 100 andinteract with various components of loyalty system 26, database 32, cardissuer system 38, and merchant system 40.

At 102, recommendation engine 60 is operable to detect one or morecardholder attributes from cardholder data collected by one or more cardissuers. The cardholder attributes may relate to cardholders, customer,members, potential cardholders, potential customer, potential members,and so on. Example attributes include BIN range, distance betweencardholder and merchant, spending (total, average monthly, etc.), type(existing, potential), age, gender, feedback, visits (total, average permonth), number of transactions, type, products purchased, servicespurchased, transaction history, zip code, location, favorite merchants,preferences, interests, redeemed incentives, charitable preferences,unused incentives, settings, etc. The attributes may be received fromcard issuer system 38 or retrieved from database 32.

At 104, recommendation engine 60 is operable to identify a merchant andan anticipated transaction between the merchant and one or morecardholders. The merchant may initiate the recommendation process andmay be identified by recommendation engine 60 at this step. The merchantmay specify an anticipated transaction or the recommendation engine 60may suggest an anticipated transaction based on the cardholderattributes. Step 104 may occur prior to 102 or after 106. For example,the attributes may be identified based on the anticipated transactionand the merchant.

At 106, recommendation engine 60 is operable to identify one or morecardholders. The cardholders may be identified based on the attributesselected at 102, or may be otherwise identified. Step 106 may occurprior to 102 or 104, or concurrently with 102. The incentive will targetthe identified cardholders. For example, they may be of a particular ageand gender, and have particular shopping habits. These may be used toidentify the attributes and correlate to interests and preferences ofother similar cardholders.

Recommendation engine 60 is operable to identify the cardholders basedon similarity between their attributes and the detected one or morecardholder attributes. The cardholder attributes may includedemographics, and recommendation engine 60 is operable to identify theone or more cardholders based on the demographics.

The merchant may be associated with merchant attributes (e.g. location,products, services), and the one or more cardholders may be identifiedbased on the merchant attributes.

At 108, recommendation engine 60 is operable to generate recommendedincentives for the identified one or more cardholders based on the oneor more cardholder attributes, or to generate alert notifications ofevents and trends based on customer and transaction data.

Each recommended incentive defines a benefit provided by the merchant tothe cardholder upon the occurrence of the anticipated transactionbetween the merchant and the cardholder. The incentive may be for aparticular product or service identified to be of interest to thecardholders, and may be valid for a particular time that the cardholderis likely to redeem the incentive. For example, the incentive may be adiscount on golf wear at a golf club on a Wednesday night when dataanalysis reveals that the cardholder typically golfs on Wednesday nightat the golf club. This may encourage the cardholder to spend more moneyon their visit.

Each alert notification notifies a user of the loyalty system 26 (e.g.,a merchant) regarding an identified event or trend. Examples of suchevents and trends are described below.

To generate recommended incentives and alert notifications,recommendation engine 60 stores a set of rules which are applied to datastored in database 32, including for example, customer data andtransaction data. Each rule defines the criteria to be satisfied forgenerating the particular incentive or alert notification. Each rule isstored in association with an indicator of a pre-defined incentive oralert notification to be provided when the rule's criteria are met.

In some embodiments, rule criteria can be defined when an incentive iscreated. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 55, criteria can bereceived via a user interface to trigger generation of a reward when acardholder of a specified demographic spends more than X amount orvisits more than Y times in the past Z time period. Other incentivetriggers may be predefined by the system and may be enabled or disabledby an administrator.

In some embodiments, each of the rules may be defined as a databasequery. For example, when database 32 is an SQL database, each of therules may be defined as an SQL query.

In other embodiments, each of the rules may be defined as a businessrule suitable for processing using a conventional business rulemanagement system with a rules engine, such as JBoss Drools™, ILOGJRules™, FICO Blaze Advisor™, or the like.

In some embodiments, rules may be processed using conventionalartificial intelligence techniques. For example, recommendation engine32 may include a rules engine that implements a conventional artificialneural network or fuzzy logic to determine when the criteria of rulesare met.

Reference will now be made to FIGS. 4 and 5, which illustrate an examplesystem for providing charitable incentives.

FIG. 4 depicts loyalty system 26 interconnected with the card issuersystem 38, the merchant system 40, and a charity system 80 by way of thecommunication network 10.

Having regard to FIG. 5, the loyalty system 26 (and in particularcharity utility 76) may interact with a charity system 80 to providecharitable incentives. For example, an incentive may result in adonation to a charity from the merchant, card issuer, card holder, andso on. Charity system 80 may include a data storage device with donordata 88. Charity system 80 may include a loyalty interface forgenerating interfaces populated with data from loyalty system 26.

For example, a correlation may be made between donor data and benefitsaccounts 34 a or card holder data 70 to determine whether any donors arealso cardholders. If so, then recommendation engine 60 may recommend anincentive with a donation portion to the charity associated with charitysystem 80.

Charity system 84 may include a registration tool 84 to register usersto become donors, and potentially cardholders of a loyalty programcreated by loyalty system 26. The registration tool 84 provides amechanism to collect attributes regarding donors.

Charity system 80 may be implemented as a computing device havingarchitecture and components similar to that detailed above for loyaltysystem 26. In some embodiments, one or more of loyalty system 26, cardissuer system 38, merchant system 40, and charity system 80 may beintegrated such that they reside on a single computing device, andcommunicate using intra-device communication channels (e.g.,inter-process communication).

FIG. 6B provides a flowchart diagram of an example method 110 forrecommending charitable incentives.

At 112, charity system 80 or charity utility 76 is operable to identifydonors associated with a charity. The donors may be cardholders orpotential cardholders for a loyalty program provided by loyalty system26. The donors are associated with attributes, such as the exampleattributes described herein in relation to cardholders.

Charity system 80 or charity utility 76 is operable to determine whichdonors are cardholders and which are not. Charity system 80 or charityutility 76 are operable to invite those donors which are not cardholdersto participate in a loyalty program offering incentives that includedonations to the charity. These may be recommended incentives based ontheir past donations.

At 114, charity system 80 or charity utility 76 is operable to identifya merchant and an anticipated transaction between the merchant and atleast one donor. This may occur prior to 112 or after in differentembodiments. The charity system 80 may contact a merchant upon detectingthat a subset of donors are also customers, potential customers, orcardholders to arrange for an incentive provided by merchant thatincludes a donation to the charity. The anticipated transaction mayidentify a good or service of interest to the donors based on theattributes.

At 116, charity system 80 or charity utility 76 is operable to generatea recommended incentive based on the charity, the attributes, themerchant, and the transaction. The incentive defines a benefit providedby the merchant to the charity upon the occurrence of a transactioninvolving the merchant and one or more donors. In this way, a donor ismotivated to transact with the merchant using a cardholder by the cardissuer due to the donation provided to their preferred charity. Thecharity system 80 or charity utility 76 may contact donors encouragingthem to register for a card associated with a card issuer and transactwith a merchant, as this may result in an increase in donations to thecharity. The card issuer and the merchant may have access to a new setof potential customers via charity system 80. The loyalty system 26 mayconsider the buying patterns of donors to recommend incentives with adonation component. This also allows merchants to see what customers arealso donors and tailor incentives accordingly. An alert as describedabove may also be generated at 116.

The charity system 80 may be used to manage events and the attendee listmay also receive the recommended incentive. This may increasetransactions for both merchants and card issuers, as well as increasedonations if there is an additional incentive offered by merchant orcard issuers. The merchant, charity or card issuer may set a donationrate which may be a fixed or proportional amount. For example, apercentage of the transaction amount may be given as a donation.

Merchant system 40 is operable to display various interfaces to interactwith loyalty system 26.

FIG. 7 shows an example screen of a merchant dashboard 200. The merchantdashboard 200 displays various reports in a tile configuration to givethe merchant a snapshot of various features and functionalities.Dashboard 200 and other interfaces described herein may be presented asone or more web pages. As such loyalty system 26 may include aconventional HTTP server application (e.g., Apache HTTP Server, nginx,Microsoft IIS, or the like) adapting loyal system 26 to presentdashboard 200 and other interfaces to users operating web-enabledcomputing devices.

The AT A GLANCE panel (1) offers a graphical bar-chart providing acomparison of published and redeemed rewards (which may be referred toas incentives). Alongside the graph are the numerical values associatedwith each item. Clicking anywhere in the tile displays a detailedsummary of the rewards, or an incentive list.

The DURATION DROP DOWN control (2) provides the merchant with optionsfor adjusting the time period during which the displayed informationpertains. For example, the time period may be “last 30 days”. When themerchant selects an option, the page updates to reflect that timeperiod. If a merchant has only been on the program for 2 days theirdefault will be “last 7 days”, until the loyalty system 26 has more dataavailable.

The REVENUE & GIVING panel (3) offers 4 dynamic data fields, for theselected time-period. These include: Reward Revenue; Average perTransaction amount; Program Revenue shows total transactions (includingreward related transactions); and Sent to Charity. As will be explainedherein with reference to FIG. 5, loyalty system 26 may provideadditional functionality relating to charities and donations. Forexample, an incentive may provide that a merchant may make a donation toa charity for each transaction during a particular time period. This mayincent customers to transact with the merchant for that time period ifthey are interested in supporting a particular charity. The charity maybe in the same geographic area as the merchant and customer which mayincrease community support. A summary of the total amount provided to acharity for the time period may be shown as part of dashboard 200.

There are trending indicators that indicate how this data is currentlyperforming in relation to the previously selected time period, i.e. last30 days in this wireframe. For example, an up arrow indicates thecurrent figures are higher than previous corresponding time-period and adown arrow indicates the current figures are lower than previouscorresponding time-period.

Clicking anywhere in the tile may trigger the display of a TrendsPerformance page.

The FEEDBACK panel (4) offers aggregated feedback corresponding tofeedback from customers, i.e. Loved it, Liked it, Disliked it, and Hatedit. Clicking anywhere in the tile may trigger the display of a MerchantReviews List page.

The ALERTS panel (5) offers the most recent alerts. An alert may beassociated with a trigger defining a business rule or threshold. Analert engine may mine and process the system data to determine whether atrigger is met and generates the associated alert. The triggers mayrelate to trends. The business rules and thresholds for alert triggersmay be default values or may be user configurable. Accordingly, theALERTS panel (5) may display triggered alerts. Alerts provide anotification to a user of system (e.g. a merchant) regarding dataanalytics, observed trends, events, and so on. The alert notificationmay include one or more suggested objectives for an incentive, one ormore suggested incentives, trends, and other information regardingcustomers and transactions.

For example, trend alerts may be generated to identify time ranges ordays of the week when the merchant is historically not busy (e.g. byanalyzing data for the merchant or data averages from other similarbusinesses and merchants). The alert may include suggested incentivestargeting the time ranges or days of the week when the merchant ishistorically not busy.

Alerts may be generated to notify the merchant of an occurrence of anevent, such as negative feedback received via reviews, social mediaplatforms, and so on. An alert for negative feedback or other event mayor may not include a reward suggestion.

Trend alerts may be generated to notify the merchant of a customer whohas achieved a high spending threshold. The high spending threshold mayrelate to a single visit or may aggregate spending from multiple visitsfor a predefined or infinite period of time. An alert for negativefeedback may or may not include a reward suggestion.

Trend alerts may be generated to notify the merchant of a customer whohas achieved a high number of visits threshold. The high number ofvisits threshold may be compared to an aggregated number of visits overa predefined or infinite period of time.

In some example embodiments, data for generating trend alerts and/orincentives can be continually monitored so as to encompass newtransaction data and/or feedback as it is received in real time orotherwise, and to potentially generate a new trend alert and/orincentive as soon as new transaction data and/or feedback data isreceived.

In some examples, data for generating trend alerts and/or incentives canbe continually monitored as time passes to provide timely time-basedalerts and/or incentives. This continual monitoring can includecontinually updating trends and statistics based on defined time periodssuch as 30-day trends, seasonal trends, weekly trends, hourly trends,day of the week trends, time of day trends, etc. In some examples,continual time monitoring can generate an alert when a particularcustomer or group of customers has not made a transaction in the last Xdays.

Similar to the criteria received for incentive generation illustrated inFIG. 55, in some embodiments, criteria for generating trend alerts maybe received via a user interface or otherwise to define one or moretriggers. Other triggers may be predefined by the system and may beenabled or disabled by an administrator.

These are non-limiting examples and other alerts may be triggered andgenerated by system.

The panel may only display a few alerts of all available alerts. Forexample, 3/10 is an indicator of the number of alerts shown in the tilevs. total alerts. Clicking one of the alerts displays may trigger thedisplay of an alert page. Clicking the title bar may trigger the displayof a Manage Alert List. If no Alerts are available, a “no alerts”message displays in the tile.

The TOP PERFORMING REWARDS panel (6) is a mini list-control module ofthe Manage Rewards page. The list shows the top 5 most redeemed rewardsin the selected timeframe (in this image: 30 days). This enables themerchant to view successful rewards (e.g. incentives). The successfulrewards may be used by loyalty system 26 to recommend rewards andincentives to tailor and customize a loyalty program for the merchant.Clicking one of the rewards may trigger the display of a correspondingReward Details page. Clicking the Top Performing Rewards title bardisplays Rewards List page, for example. If no Active Rewards areavailable, a button to ‘create a reward’ displays.

The CUSTOMERS panel (7) provides a pie-chart view of new vs returningcustomers. There are three numerical values represented here: new,returning, and total number of customers. There is a trending indicatornext to total customers that describes if there has been an increase ordecrease in customers during the selected time period. Clicking anywherein the tile may trigger the display of a Trends Demographics page.

The LOCATION DROP DOWN: item (8) at the top, in this example, gives adefault selection of All Locations. Selecting a particular locationdisplays reviews for that location only. A merchant may have stores inmultiple locations. When the merchant has only one location, thelocation drop-down may not be shown. The Location selection persists onthe Dashboard 200, even if another Location is selected on a differentpage (i.e. Trends Performance) Locations may be sorted by the streetaddress.

Accordingly, the dashboard 200 provides a summary report of datacollected and managed by loyalty system 26. The merchant reporting tool66 may be used to provide data to loyalty system 26 and received datafrom loyalty system 26. The dashboard 200 enables a merchant to easilyand effectively review aspects and results of one or more loyaltyprograms. This a non-limiting example and other configurations andcontrols may be provided by dashboard 200. A merchant may tailor andcustomize dashboard.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example interface for creating incentives for oneor more loyalty programs. An incentive may be referred to herein as areward or a benefit. The example interface provides four example typesof incentives that may be created: (a) Alerts (e.g. recommendedincentives based on data analysis, trends based on thresholds, trendsbased on events), (b) Custom; (c) Event-Driven, and (d) Create FromSample. The example interface asks the user the question “What Type ofReward Would You Like to Create?”

Selecting “CUSTOM” displays an objectives screen for selecting anobjective for the custom incentive.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example interface for choosing an objective forthe custom incentive. The example interface provides three sample buttonitems to select from to Choose an Objective for the Reward (e.g.Incentive):

Item (1) Increase Spending Button.

Item (2) Bring in New Customers Button.

Item (3) Start from Scratch Button (e.g. a custom objective can beentered).

For the custom objective a user may start creating a reward without anypre-selected fields.

FIGS. 10A and 10B illustrate an example interface for targetingcustomers with the incentive. The interface displays a demographicsscreen to enable the user to target particular customers with theirincentive. The demographics include particular attributes aboutcustomers.

For example, the Demographics screen allows Merchants to target a rewardto a specific group of cardholders, members, or customers. Thepopulation defined at this screen determines which Members are eligibleto receive the reward in this example.

The interface enables to merchant user to filter the population based onselected customer attributes. Filters are displayed and hidden dependingon the chosen objective. In some examples, only relevant filters aredisplayed. The visual displays the default filter order.

Item 1 illustrates a graph and descriptive text guide to assist the userin understanding what customer segment they should target. This is basedon the objective chosen for the incentive. The graph may be a datavisualization that displays the recommended target segment. In someexamples, creating an objective from scratch may not have a graph anddescriptive text. The example graph may illustrate the average monthlyspending for customers, such as less than $10, between $10-$50, between$50-$100, and over $100. This may enable a merchant user to tailor theaward based on the average spending of customers. For example, themerchant may want to target customers that spend between $50-$100monthly with an incentive. Average monthly spending is an examplecustomer or cardholder attribute.

Item 2 enables selection of a Customer Type filter to allow merchants todefine/limit the general group of customers that will receive a specificincentive. Existing customers are Members that have previously purchasedfrom the Merchant. Potential customers are Members that have neverpurchased from the Merchant but are in the Merchant's region(s).Customer type is another example customer or cardholder attribute.

Item 3 enables selection of a Gender filter to allow merchants to limitthe reward recipients to the chosen gender(s). Gender is a furtherexample customer or cardholder attribute.

Item 4 enables selection of a Age filter to allow merchants to limit thereward recipients to the chosen age groups. A business rule mayimplement the filtering mechanism. Age is an example customer orcardholder attribute.

Item 5 enables selection of a distance from store filter to allowmerchants to limit reward recipients by the distance of their homeaddress from a store location. The maximum distance from a location maybe the region (State) it is located in. Distance from store is anexample customer or cardholder attribute.

Item 6 enables selection of a Customer Experience Feedback Filter toallow merchants to limit reward recipients by how they rated theirexperience for a location or multiple locations. “No Feedback” indicatescustomers who have not left any feedback for that business. This mayonly be displayed if “Existing” customer type is selected and“Potential” is unselected, as potential customers may not have providedany feedback. Customer Feedback is an example customer or cardholderattribute.

Item 7 enables selection of an Average Monthly Spending filter to allowmerchants to limit the reward recipients by their monthly average amountspent at the Merchant. This may only be displayed if “Existing” customertype is selected and “Potential” is unselected. Average Monthly Spendingis an example customer or cardholder attribute.

Item 8 enables selection of a Customer visits filter to allow merchantsto limit reward recipients by their number of visits. This allowstargeting of customers based on how many times they have visited abusiness. This may only be displayed if “Existing” customer type isselected and “Potential” is unselected. Customer visits is an examplecustomer or cardholder attribute.

Item 9 enables selection of a Total spent filter to allow merchants tolimit reward recipients by the total amount they have spent at one ormore location. This allows the targeting of customers who have spentover a certain threshold amount. This may only be displayed if“Existing” customer type is selected and “Potential” is unselected.Total spent is an example customer or cardholder attribute.

Item 10 enables selection of a Total Visits filter to allow merchants tolimit reward recipients by the total number of visits to one or morelocations. This allows the targeting of customers who have visited overa certain threshold amount. This may only be displayed if “Existing”customer type is selected and “Potential” is unselected. Total visits isan example customer or cardholder attribute.

Item 11 (FIG. 10A) is a Demographic Summary Pane to provide a summaryview of demographics (e.g. attributes) of the targeted customers for thereward. This displays a summary for all filters that have selectedvalues. If all values for a filter are selected “All” filters aredisplayed, otherwise the selected values may be displayed in acomma-separated list.

The customer count at the bottom of the pane is dynamic and updates inreal-time in response to selections. As the user selects differentvalues the count changes to expose how many Members would receive thereward. This would involve the loyalty system 26 being operable torapidly calculate the recipients, taking into account system filters andMember preferences/attributes. This functionality may be conditional onthe Merchant categories and sub-categories being able to match theMember preferred store categories.

Business rules may govern the display of the summary pane. For example,if the summary pane fits on the screen, it may lock at the top when auser starts scrolling down so it has 10 px spacing between its top edgeand the top of the screen. When a user scrolls all the way to the top,it relaxes so it does not cover the navigation. If the summary pane doesnot fit on the screen, it may lock to the bottom of the screen when auser starts scrolling so that there is 10 px spacing between the buttonsbelow the pane and the bottom of the screen. It should never overlap thefooter either.

FIG. 52 illustrates further examples of demographics summary panesproviding a summary view of demographics (e.g. attributes) of thetargeted customers for a reward. FIG. 52 further illustrates a settingssummary pane providing a summary view of settings for a reward. Thesettings shown are based on selections by the user or automaticconfigurations and recommendations by the loyalty system 26.

FIG. 11A illustrates an interface screen for a custom incentive with theobject to increase spending. This is a variation of the Demographicsscreen in the case where “Increase Spend” was selected on the “CreateCustom Rewards Menu” screen. Three items may be show on this screen asan illustrative example.

Item 1 illustrates a graph of average customer spending. This graphdisplays the average monthly spending of all customers. The customerpopulation that spends less than the average monthly of $50 spending ishighlighted.

Item 2 illustrates Descriptive text. This text explains the graph andgives recommendations on types of members to target. For example, theobjective of this incentive may be to increase sales by offering rewardsto the segment whose average is less than the others. The incentive maytarget customers who spend less than a $50 average to get them toincrease their spending.

Item 3 illustrates additional Filters (e.g. gender, age, distance fromstore). These are the filters that are displayed for the IncreaseSpending objective.

The Average Monthly Spending filter is expanded by default, with the twolowest spending values checked as this example targets customers whospend less than a $50 average to get them to increase their spending.The Gender, Age, and Distance filters are collapsed by default, with allvalues selected, for this example.

FIG. 11B illustrates an interface screen for a custom incentive with theobject to bring in new customers to one or more locations. This is avariation of the Demographics screen in the case where “Bring In NewCustomers” was selected on the “Create Custom Rewards Menu” screen.

Item 1 illustrates a Graph of customers by their age and gender. Thisgraph displays the breakdown of the Merchant's customers by age groupsand gender. The graph illustrates the number of each customer by agegroup and gender.

Item 2 illustrates Descriptive text. This text explains the graph andgives recommendations on types of members to target. For example, theobjective of this incentive may be to target customer groups who are notshopping at one or more locations.

Item 3 illustrates additional Filters (e.g. gender, age, distance fromstore). These are the filters that are displayed for the Attract NewCustomers objective. The Gender filter is expanded by default with thegender with fewer members pre-selected by the loyalty system 26. The Agefilter is expanded by default with the age values pre-selected by theloyalty system 26. The Customer Type and Distance filters are collapsedby default. Customer Type has all values selected and Distance has allvalues selected except for 20+ (the state wide value) for this example.

Example Filters include:

-   -   Customer Type: values: Current, Potential    -   Gender: values: Men, Women    -   Age: values: <18, 18-30, 31-45, 46-65, >65    -   Area: values: entry fields for zip codes    -   Customer Spending (Previous 2 Months): values: <$10, $10-$50,        $51-$100, >$100    -   Customer Visits (Previous 2 Months): values: <1, 1-4, 5-10, >10    -   Feedback: values: Love, Like, So-so, Dislike

The filters may also be referred to as attributes herein.

FIG. 12 illustrates an interface screen for customizing an incentive.

Item 1 illustrates the type of reward that is being created. In thisexample the reward is an event driven reward.

Item 2 illustrates the Reward ID. The reward ID may be pre-populated bythe loyalty system 26 and is the same as the barcode number for theincentive to create a linking between them. The reward ID may not beedited. The prefix may be optional and the Merchant may add analphanumeric prefix to the reward ID.

Item 3 illustrates the Reward title which is a short description of thereward.

Item 4 illustrates the Terms & Conditions (fine print) for theincentive. The field may default to the previously used Terms &Conditions. There may be a character limit, such as 500 items.

Item 5 illustrates a Donation option. The donation allows the merchantto enter a donation rate for the reward. This donation may be providedto a charity (as described in relation to FIG. 5). In this example 18%of the incentive value or transaction total may be donated to charity.

Item 6 illustrates Icons for the incentive. A user can select from aseries of stock icons. The first one may be selected by default.Selection will cause a highlight to appear around the icon.

Item 7 illustrates a Photo for the incentive. A user can select from anumber of recently used images or upload a new image. If recently usedimages exist, the first one may be selected by default.

Item 8 displays the addresses for all store locations. The Merchant canselect one or multiple locations. The first location may be selected bydefault.

Item 9 illustrates the Schedule section which may allow the Merchant toset the Start/Publish date and the period a reward is valid for. Asingle reward may be selected by default. The incentive may also be arepeating reward. There may be an active date for the reward and anactive period.

Item 10 illustrates the Limit which may set the total amount of peoplethat can redeem a reward. This may add an additional text in thedescription and fine text that indicates that the number of redemptionsis limited. Note: Limit may be a synonym for “Throttle.”

Item 11 illustrates the Demographics Pane. The default state may becollapsed, and this may be expanded by selecting the expansionindicator.

Item 12 illustrates the Summary module which may be a floating elementthat may be always visible when users scroll up/down, and shows how thereward is being built. As the user enters information into the fields inthe body of the page, that information may be propagated into the rewardsummary.

The summary pane may scroll vertically with the screen making it alwaysvisible/available. The functionality is nuanced to change alignment withthe top or bottom of the window if the window is smaller than thesummary vertical size.

Item 13 illustrates the “Previous” button to display the previousscreen.

Item 14 illustrates the Save Draft button. When a Merchant selects “SaveDraft”, the state of the reward is changed to draft and the selectionsare saved.

Item 15 illustrates the “Next Step” button to display to the PreviewScreen for the incentive.

There may be a Description field which provides a detailed descriptionof the reward.

FIG. 13A illustrates an interface screen for customizing a rewardschedule where the reward is a single reward. The example interfaceillustrates five example configurations.

Item 1.1 provides a Reward type. The default value in this example isSingle (e.g. available for a single time). Any changes may be retainedfor the duration that the screen is displayed. Switching between Singleand Repeating rewards displays the previously chosen values for eachtype.

Item 1.2 provides an Active Date. The default value may be the currentdate. This sets the date that the reward will become active. Both singleand repeating rewards types start at this date.

Item 1.3 provides a Schedule Description, which may be a dynamic textstring that displays the date and time the single reward will expire.

Item 1.4 provides an Active Time. The default value may be the beginningof the current hour. This works in conjunction with the Active Date toset the date and time that the reward will be published to customers andbecomes active. The time drop down gives times in 1 hour increments e.g.1:00 am, 2:00 am . . . 11:00 pm, 12:00 pm. All dates and times may bebased on the merchant's time zone.

Item 1.5 provides an Active period. The default value for single andrepeating rewards may be one week. This may be the amount of time (e.g.period of time) the reward is active. The text entry box will only allowentry of integers greater than 0. The values in the dropdown are: Day(s)and Week(s).

FIG. 13B illustrates an interface screen for customizing a rewardschedule where the reward is a repeating reward (e.g. may be availablemultiple times). The example interface illustrates five exampleconfigurations.

The repeating of an reward allows the Merchant to automatically set areward to re-publish on a regular basis. Repeating creates a new rewardthat is almost identical to the original, the only difference would bethe publish and expiration date. The first reward becomes active on thestart date and all subsequent rewards occur after the first reward hasexpired. Repeating rewards may not overlap.

Item 2 provides an Active Date. For repeating rewards the FinalActivation date may be highlighted in the date picker for the ActiveDate.

Item 2.1 sets a repeating occurrence schedule. The default value may be“Every week” when Repeating reward is selected. This determines howoften a reward will repeat. This value is always greater than the ActivePeriod value. Options that are less than the Active Period may bedisabled.

If the Merchant changes the Active Period value, the repeatingoccurrence schedule value may be re-set to an option that is equal to orgreater than the Active Period value. Options include Every week; Every2 weeks; Every Month; Every 3 months; Every 6 months.

Item 2.2 provides a Weekly Repeats Text. This value automaticallyupdates to match the day of the week that the merchant selects as theirActive Date.

For example, if 04/06/2012 is a Friday “Every 2 weeks [selected] ‘onFriday’”. This is calculated as <same day of the week at the selectedActive Date>. When the merchant switches the ‘Active date’ to the 7th,the text changes to ‘on Saturday’.

Item 2.3 provides a Final Activation Date. Default value may be 6 monthsfrom the current date. This sets the last day that the reward can berepeated. This does not include the Active period. For example, a rewardcould repeat on the Final Activation Date and would still be active forthe duration of the Active period. The Final Activation Date may not beset to precede the Active Date. The Active Date may be highlighted inthe Date picker for the Final Activation Date.

Item 2.4 provides a Schedule Description, which may be a dynamic textstring that displays repeating occurrence schedules and the count ofrewards that will become active between the Active Date and the FinalActivation Date.

FIG. 14 displays an interface screen for a preview of the customincentive.

The Review and Publish screen allows Merchants to preview the reward,and publish the reward to customers.

Item 1 provides a reward preview button where selection changes the typeof preview that is displayed in the preview area. This example shows amobile version and a full screen version.

Item 2 provides a Reward Preview illustration to preview how the rewardwill look when published.

Item 3 provides a Edit button which triggers the display of theCustomize screen with the data pre-populated. The Publish buttondisplays the Confirm screen to confirm publication.

FIG. 15 displays an interface screen for a preview of the customincentive in a mobile format.

FIG. 16 displays an interface screen for a confirmation screen of thecustom incentive. This screen may display once the reward has beencreated and reading for publication.

Item 1 provides a Selecting View Reward button which triggers display ofthe Manage Rewards screen (e.g. reward details screen for the reward).

Item 2 provides a Go to Dashboard button to trigger the display theDashboard 200 screen.

FIG. 17 displays an interface screen for creating an event drivenincentive (as referred to in FIG. 6).

The event driven incentive may be tailored to recommend objectives byloyalty system 26 based on events. The example objectives shown are (a)address negative feedback, (b) reward spending, and (c) reward frequentvisits.

FIG. 18 displays an interface screen for creating an event drivenincentive with the objective of addressing negative feedback.

Item 1 provides a graph of customer reviews. This graph displayscustomer responses to the customer experience survey question. Itdisplays the totals for each response. Disliked and Hated responses arehighlighted for this example.

Item 2 provides descriptive text. This text explains the graph and givesrecommendations on types of members to target.

Item 3 provides a feedback filter. This allows the choice of targetingMembers who chose Disliked or Hated for the customer experience surveyquestion.

FIG. 19 displays an interface screen for creating an event drivenincentive with the objective of rewarding spending.

Item 1 provides a graph of customer spending. This graph displays thetotal cumulative spending of all customers. The highest spendingcustomer group is highlighted.

Item 2 provides descriptive text. This text explains the graph and givesrecommendations on types of members to target.

Item 3 provides a Total spent filter. This allows the targeting ofcustomers who have spent over a certain threshold amount.

FIG. 20 displays an interface screen for creating an event drivenincentive with the objective of rewarding frequent visits.

Item 1 provides a graph of customers visits. This graph displays thebreakdown of customers by their total number of transactions(cumulative). The high frequency buckets are highlighted in thisexample.

Item 2 provides descriptive text. This text explains the graph and givesrecommendations on types of members to target.

Item 3 provides a Total Visits filter. This allows the targeting ofcustomers who have visited over a certain threshold amount.

There may be a Customize screen for automatic or event-driven rewardswhich may be similar to the Customize screen for “Custom” rewards(described herein).

The Preview screen for automatic rewards may be the same or similar tothe Preview screen for “Custom” rewards (described herein).

The Confirmation screen for automatic rewards may be the same or similarto the Customize screen for “Custom” rewards (above).

FIG. 21 displays an interface screen for creating an incentive from asample.

A menu of option buttons may be displayed. Selecting one of the buttonson this page will take the user to the “Custom Reward—DemographicsScreen” (described herein). On the “Customize Screen”, the title anddescription fields will be pre-filled with the text based on the sample.

Item 1 provides the Page Title.

Item 2 provides a sample reward with a Reward Title (e.g. 10% off[product]) and a Reward Description (e.g. Receive 10% off this productwith this reward).

Item 3 provides another sample reward with a Reward Title (e.g. HappyHour) and a Reward Description (e.g. Come in between [time] and [time]for 10% off of purchase).

Item 4 provides a further sample reward with a Reward Title (e.g. BuyOne, Get One Free) and a Reward Description (e.g. Buy one product andreceive an additional product of equal or lesser value, free of charge).

Item 5 provides another sample reward with a Reward Title (e.g. 10% offPurchaser) and a Reward Description (e.g. Receive 10% off your totalin-store purchase on all items).

Item 6 provides a further sample reward with a Reward Title (e.g.Charity Happy Hour) and a Reward Description (e.g. Come in between[time] and [time] and we will donate 5% of purchase total to [charity]).

Once an incentive has been created, a new data record reflective of theincentive is generated and added to database 32. Table III belowprovides a summary of an example data format for storing incentives.

TABLE III Example Incentive Data Format Data Field Contents IncentiveIDIdentifier unique to the incentive IncentiveDetails Reward title,description, and associated icons and photo Reward Percentage Percentageof the transaction value to be provided as a reward (or donation) RewardLimit Upper limit of any reward (donation) to be given for thetransaction IncentiveSchedule The active time period and any recurrenceperiod Status Active, inactive, expired IncentiveCriteria Criteriaselected by the user for triggering the incentive (e.g., customerdemographic) CardholderContent Number of cardholders that are eligiblefor the incentive

As noted, the incentive criteria (IncentiveCriteria data field in TableIII) may be defined as a SQL query or business rule, and stored in suchform. The SQL query or business rule may be automatically generated byloyalty system 26 with parameters of reflecting the incentive criteriaselected by the user.

FIG. 22A displays an interface screen with example trend alerts. Theinterface may enable a merchant to view and manage alerts. Alertsprovide a notification to a user of the loyalty system 26 (e.g. amerchant) regarding data analytics. The alert notification may includeone or more suggested objectives for an incentive, one or more suggestedincentives, trends, and other information regarding customers andtransactions.

For example, the suggested objectives may be to attract a new group ofcustomers (e.g. targeted demographic, gap in demographic of existingcustomers), bring in more customer during off peak or slow periods,increase the frequency of visits or spending from existing customers,and so on. Each alert may be associated with a date and status (new,past).

For the objective to bring in more customer during off peak or slowperiods an trend alert may be generated to identify time ranges or daysof the week when the merchant is historically not busy (e.g. byanalyzing data for the merchant or data averages from other similarbusinesses and merchants). The alert may include suggested incentivestargeting the time ranges or days of the week when the merchant ishistorically not busy.

Another objective may be to respond or be notified of particular events.Trend alerts may be generated to notify the merchant of negativefeedback received via reviews, social media platforms, and so on. Analert for negative feedback may or may not include a reward suggestion.

For the objective to increase or reward spending from existingcustomers, trend alerts may be generated to notify the merchant of acustomer who has achieved a high spending threshold, or is below a lowspending threshold. The high or low spending threshold may relate to asingle visit or may aggregate spending from multiple visits for apredefined or infinite period of time. An alert for high or low spendingthreshold may or may not include a reward suggestion.

For the objective to increase the frequency of visits from existingcustomers, trend alerts may be generated to notify the merchant of acustomer who has achieved a high number of visits threshold. The highnumber of visits threshold may be compared to an aggregated number ofvisits over a predefined or infinite period of time.

The Manage Alerts interface screen allows the merchant to see a listingof all alerts. The default sort is by date, with the newest alerts atthe top of the list. This may be user configurable. Dismissed alerts aredisplayed below alerts that have not been dismissed, for example.

A Filter Section (1) may allow merchants to select a set of Alertswithin a category. That is, each alert may be associated with adifferent category. If the Merchant has no alerts within a category,that category is not displayed.

Status filter may filter alerts based on the associated status. Clickingone of the status filters may display only the alerts with that Status.The default Status is “All”. This may be user configurable.

Alert Type filter may filter alerts based on alert type. Clicking one ofthe alert type options displays only that type of alert. The defaultoption is “All”. This may be user configurable. If the Merchant has noalerts of a certain type, that option is not displayed.

Headers (2) (e.g. date, title, status) may allow for sorting by theirrespective field. Clicking on the header sorts ascending on firstselection. Selecting a second time sorts in descending order.

Alerts (3) may be associated with a date, title, and status. Clickinganywhere on an Alert may trigger the display of the Alert Details.

Alerts may be associated with a status. The status may be New bydefault. Alerts that have been viewed, dismissed or have been used tocreate a reward or incentive have a status of Past.

An alert may provide a notification of an event or data analytics trendthat may or may not be used to generate an incentive. An alert may ormay not include a recommended incentive.

A merchant may want to view a list of current and past alerts. Amerchant may want to be able to sort the list of alerts that they havereceived by new or all, or other parameter or attribute. A merchant maywant to be able to dismiss an alert that they do not want to take actionon. A merchant may want to view the details of past or current alerts.

Once an alert has been created, a new data record reflective of thealert is generated and added to database 32. Table IV below provides asummary of an example data format for storing alert.

TABLE III Example Alert Data Format Data Field Contents AlertIDIdentifier unique to the alert IncentiveDetails Alert title,description, and associated icons and photo Status Active, inactive,expired AlertCriteria Criteria selected by the user for triggering thealert IncentiveID Identifier of any incentive(s) to be suggested withthe alert

As noted, the alert criteria (AlertCriteria data field in Table IV) maybe defined as a SQL query or business rule, and stored in such form. TheSQL query or business rule may be automatically generated by loyaltysystem 26 with parameters of reflecting the alert criteria selected bythe user.

FIG. 22B displays an interface screen for a First Time Merchant Message,which mat display for the new Merchant that has never had an alert.

FIG. 23A displays an interface screen with an example trend alert, whichmay include recommendations for incentives. The example trend alert mayrelate to the objective of bringing in or targeting a group of customerby e.g. demographic data analysis. This illustrative and non-limitingexample targets women under age 18 and men between age 30 and 44.

Loyalty system 26 may include a recommendation engine 60 to recommendincentives targeting customers having particular attributes. Thisexample provides an indication to merchants of gap in their customerdemographics to recommend incentives to fill those gaps. Recommendationsmay be referred to herein as alerts. A type of alert may be a suggestionor recommendation for an incentive, for example. The suggestion may bebased on data analytics based on rules configuring thresholds ortriggers.

Item 1 provides Alert Pagination. This displays the index of the currentrecommendation and the total number of recommendation.

Item 2 provides Alert Type. Displays the type of alert. Examples includea gap in demographics, slow-time trend, reward repeats, etc.

Alert Triggers may define alert types and recommendations using businessrules. Examples may include increase your per-transaction average, bringin a new group of customers. The Alert Trigger may be compared to datacollected by the loyalty system 26 and defined by a rule. If the datacollected by the loyalty system 26 matches a rule then the correspondingalert may be triggered and generated.

Item 3 provides an Alert description. The alert description may begenerated by loyalty system 26 based on a set number of type of alertsand associated description data. The descriptions may be generic withtailoring from the loyalty system 26 e.g. customer counts, or may beused defined.

Item 4 provides an Alert visualization. This displays visualizationsthat are appropriate to the type of reward. The graph is based on theMerchant's and/or Card Issuer data to help clarify the type ofalert/issue.

Item 5 provides a Create reward or incentive button. This button takesthe user to the appropriate demographics screen in the Create CustomRewards. It pre-populates the demographics and setting screens withoptions based on the recommendation for the incentive. Loyalty system 26may associate recommendations for incentives with alerts and objectives.When an alert triggers then the associated incentive may be provided inthe alert as a recommendation. For example, the objective associatedwith a recommendation may be to increase per-transaction spendingaverage, bring in or target a new group of customers, increase frequencyof visits, and so on.

Creating a reward from an alert or viewing an alert may change the alertstatus to Past. The recommendation may be provided in a notificationmessage to prompt for the user's attention. Creating a reward orincentive may be response to an alert.

Item 6 provides a Dismiss button. This may change the status of theAlert to Past. The dismiss button displays the next alert in the loyaltysystem 26. If it is the last alert and the dismiss button is clicked,the previous screen is displayed. Dismissed alerts may be tagged as pastand sorted by date as with all other past alerts. On the alert detailpage, a merchant may dismiss the alert by e.g. clicking the dismissbutton, which may change the status of the alert from New to Past.Clicking the dismiss button may sort the alert by date with the otherpast alerts. Clicking the dismiss button may change the visualappearance of the button to indicate that the alert has been dismissed.

The interface provides a merchant with a view of a list of current andpast alerts.

There are different actions the merchant can take that will update thestatus of an alert from ‘new’ to ‘past.’ For example, viewing an alertin the detailed page view may update the status of an alert. As anotherexample, pressing the ‘dismiss’ button may update the status of analert. ‘New’ and ‘past’ are examples only and other statuses may be‘saved’, ‘flag’, and so on, so merchants will be able to view alerts indetail while bookmarking them for later action.

Loyalty system 26 is operable to identify trends (also referred to asalerts) using data analytic techniques and a rules engine defining rulesfor thresholds, events, and so on. An example event for alertnotification includes customer feedback.

An alert may also provide an automated suggested reward (event-drivenrewards). Merchants may receive notifications about automated rewardsthat are sent out on their behalf based on system events (for example,event-driven one such as system recognition of a demographic gap) or amerchant-set schedule (for example, a repeated reward). The types ofevents that merchants will be able to create automated rewards (via e.g.rules managed by the rules engine) for include negative feedback relatedreward, frequent visits reward, spending threshold reward, and so on.

The interface for alerts and rewards may provide a summary of therewards sent and redeemed. When rewards are sent out on behalf of amerchant notification may be added to the interface as an alert, forexample. The interface may show all rewards sent, with the most recentone at the top, for example. Rewards that are automatically sent may beindicated with an icon or other indicia to set them apart from otherrewards.

A merchant may receive negative feedback and a reward may beautomatically sent to the provider of the feedback. There may be averification mechanism to ensure that this is not manipulated by acustomer to receive additional rewards or incentives based on falsefeedback.

A merchant may click on the icon related to the feedback reward alert toview the details page and from there can create a Reward or Automatedreward to respond. For example, a merchant may set up automated rewardfor ‘negative feedback’ and when the merchant receives a new instance ofnegative feedback a reward is sent out on the merchant's behalf. Theremay be a ‘history’ section where the merchant sees when and why a rewardwas sent on his behalf.

There may be various interfaces to collect and display the various typesof notifications or alerts, such as for each of the specific type ofnotification (e.g. automated rewards alerts, feedback alerts,system-identified trends for, gaps in demographics trend alerts, slowtime trend alerts, and so on. Trends may be identified based oncomparison data from the merchant over time, and compared with merchantsin their region, or historical data for the same merchant, and so on.

There may be a dedicated interface for trends alerts observed by theloyalty system 26 such as slow time and gap in demographics, negativefeedback trends (e.g. x times of negative feedback received withintimeframe y, or in a more generic way such as ‘Change in review feedbackrating’). Loyalty system 26 calculates gender related alert algorithmsbased on male and female gender designations in order to trigger alertsabout gaps in coverage of the market segment. This may ensure that onlycardholders in the gender groups are factored into alerts. Cardholderswithin the group may not be accounted for as a distinct group indemographic alerts.

There may also be an event alert interface, such as for customerfeedback. Merchants may receive notifications when new customer feedbackhas been received. The loyalty system 26 may not discriminate betweenthe nature of the feedback received (in other words, it may not countonly ‘hate’ responses or only ‘love’ responses). Any time a new piece offeedback is received, a notification counter on the ‘feedback’ modulewithin the merchant dashboard may increase. In other embodiments, analert may be generated for specific types of feedback (e.g. negative).The merchant can view the review and decide to send a reward to anindividual or to create an event-driven (automated) reward.

An alert may be triggered by the loyalty system 26 when the percentageof business customers of a particular gender is significantly differentthan the baseline of cardholders of that gender within the region. Analert may be triggered by the loyalty system 26 when the percentage ofbusiness customers of a particular gender is significantly differentthan the baseline of cardholders of these respective genders within theregion. An alert may be triggered by the loyalty system 26 if thepercentage of business customers of a particular gender and within aparticular age range is significantly different than the baseline ofcardholders in the region within both groups. An alert may be triggeredif the percentage of business customers of a particular gender andwithin a particular age range is significantly different than thebaseline of cardholders in the region within these respective gendergroups.

The interface may provide a merchant with a Gap in Demographics Alertand a view a graph representing the number of customers by age group andgender across a period of time so that the merchant can make a decisionabout creating a Gap in Demographics reward or incentive which may beprovided as a recommendation. On the Alert Detail screen for a gap inDemographics alert, a merchant may be able to view a graph representingthe number of customers for one store by age group and gender, The Yaxis may represent the number of member customers for that merchant. TheX axis may represent age by age buckets. For example, age may be groupedas: 18-29, 30-44, 45-64, 65+. Each age group may display two differentbar graphs rising vertically from the x axis, associated to gender. Akey may be displayed that explains the bar graph that represents eachgender bar. For example, one set of bar graphs represents the number ofmembers who are women and are an age that falls within the respectiveage group range. A second set of bar graphs represents the number ofmembers who are men AND are an age that falls within the respective agegroup range. The graph pulls data from all member customers of the storewho are currently active and have an activation date earlier than anoverall time period (e.g. 3 months ago). A gap in demographics may bedefined using a rule to trigger generation of an alert. If thepercentage of a merchant's customers of a particular gender issignificantly different than the baseline of members of that genderwithin the region, then the loyalty system 26 may issue an alert to themerchant. If the percentage of a merchant's customers within aparticular age range is significantly different than the baseline ofmembers within that age range within the region, then the loyalty system26 may issue an alert to the merchant. If the percentage of a merchant'scustomers within a particular age range AND gender is significantlydifferent than the baseline of members within that age range AND genderwithin the region, then the loyalty system 26 may issue an alert to themerchant. These are examples only.

Loyalty system 26 may use a Chi-square test to test to identify gaps,such as whether the observed percentage of a merchant's customers withina particular group is consistent with the known percentage of customerswithin that particular group in the region. Let O1 refer to Observedvalue (# of merchant's customers within a particular group), E1 refer toExpected value (% of customers in region within particulargroup*merchants total customers), O2 refer to the Merchant total numberminus O1, where E2 may equal the Merchant total number minus E1. Thechi-square calculation may be based on the following:(O1−E1){circumflex over ( )}2/E1+(O2−E2){circumflex over ( )}2/E2

An example illustrative rule may provide that if chi-square is greaterthan 3.84 and O1 is less than E1 then the loyalty system 26 may identifyGap in Demographics and generate an alert. This is an example thresholdvalue to indicate a significant difference. In order for chi-square testto be performed, two conditions may be met: merchant must have at least25 customers AND O1 is less than E1. If merchant has 25 customers andone segment is 0, that segment may be also recognized as a gap.

Demographic gap alerts may be sent out periodically (e.g. weekly) untilthe gap no longer exists, for example. Loyalty system 26 may count amember as a merchant's customer if that customer has transacted at thatmerchant in last 3 months.

Loyalty system 26 may maintain transaction data from every member ateach merchant: number of transactions, dollar spend. Loyalty system 26may maintain demographic data for every member: age, gender, zip code. Amember may be counted as active if there has been activity either on theaccount or if there has been a transaction in the last year, or otherdefined time period.

Loyalty system 26 may continually identify the baseline demographicdistributions for a region. For example, the loyalty system 26 maycalculate a percentage in each age range (0-17, 18-29, 30-44, 45-64,65+), a percentage male or female, a percentage male or female in eachage range (0-17, 18-29, 30-44, 45-64, 65+), and so on. Loyalty system 26may calculate demographic distribution for each merchant's customers. Asanother example, the loyalty system 26 may calculate a total number ineach age range (0-17, 18-29, 30-44, 45-64, 65+), a total number male orfemale, a total number male or female in each age range (0-17, 18-29,30-44, 45-64, 65+), a total number of merchant's customers, and so on.

Loyalty system 26 may generate different types of trend alerts, such asa slow time of day or date of week alert. For a time of day alert, ifthe average dollar volume per hour for a particular hour of the day isbelow the overall average dollar volume per hour for all hours, then theloyalty system 26 may identify a slow time of day and generate an alert.As an illustrative example, the loyalty system 26 may calculate anoverall average number of transactions per hour for all hours for thelast 3 months (i.e. total number of transactions/total hours ofoperation in last 3 months). Loyalty system 26 may also calculate theaverage transaction dollar volume per hour that the merchant store isopen for last 3 months. (total number of transactions for each 1 hourperiod across all days in the last 3 months/total number of days thatmerchant store was open at for that 1 hour period in last 3 months). Fora day of the week alert, the loyalty system 26 may calculate an overallaverage number of transactions per day for all hours for the last 3months. (i.e. total number of transactions/total days of operation inlast 3 months), as an illustrative example. Loyalty system 26 may alsocalculate an average transaction dollar volume per day that the merchantstore is open for last 3 months. (total number of transactions for eachday of the week the merchant is open across all days in the last 3months/total number of days that merchant store was open at for thatspecific day of the week in last 3 months). If the daily average differsfrom the overall average then the loyalty system 26 may generate analert. Calculations may only include the hours within which the merchantstore is open for business (i.e. if merchant store is open 9 AM-5 PM onMondays through Fridays, 9 AM-8 PM on Saturdays, and 10 AM-4 PM onSundays, only those hours should be used). If there are multiple slowtimes of day, identify the two with the biggest differences from theaverage.

Alerts may be issued for each store or merchant periodically, such asonce a week until the merchant has taken action or the underlying datahas changed and a reported slow period is no longer a slow period.

FIG. 23B displays an interface screen with further examplerecommendations or alerts. This example targets off peak times. Thetrigger may define a threshold spending or number of visits, and dataanalytics may determine a time-of-day or day-of-week range where thehistorical spending is below the trigger threshold.

Alert chart can be either Transactions by Time-of-Day (as shown) orTransactions by Day-of-Week (in which case the header may be“Transactions Per Day”). The graph may enable a user or loyalty system26 to determine slow or off peak times. The chart may display the offpeak current data with average data to benchmark different timeintervals against the average. Off peak may be defined by a threshold orrule used to trigger the alert.

The interface may provide a merchant view for an Off-Peak Alert, so thatthe merchant may be able to view a graph of average transactions perhour throughout the business hours of a particular day. This may enablea merchant to make a decision about creating an Off-Peak reward orincentive, or provide merchant with a recommendation. The slow day graphmay show: the average dollar spend amount per business hour-of-day overthe past overall time period, an average dollar spend amount perbusiness hour, for all business hours over the past overall time period,and an indication where the average per hour-of-day is less than theoverall average per day. For example, days of week may be replaced byhours of day. So: 8 am-9 am, 9 am-10 am, etc. An Alert Detail screen foran alert may enable a merchant to view a graph representing the averagetransactions per hour across one day at one merchant store. The y axismay represent average number of transactions. The x axis may representtime of day. Data points for time of day on the x axis may be measuredon an hourly basis. Average transactions may be generated using datafrom the past overall time period. Average transactions per hour thatthe merchant store is open in a day may be generated using totaltransactions data and business hour data over the past overall timeperiod (e.g. three months). For example, a total transaction dollarvolume for 8 AM/total number of days that merchant store was open at 8AM in last 3 months.

Business hours for each individual store may be pulled from informationentered by the merchant when managing the merchant profile. The timelabels that appear on the x axis may change dynamically, depending onthe defined hours for that business. Hours may be defined by BusinessRules. Identified Off-Peak hour segments may be highlighted on thegraph.

There may be different types of alerts for slow times trends. Forexample, there may be an alert for a Slow time of day triggered by arule that indicates, for example, if the average dollar volume per hourfor a particular hour of the day is below the overall average dollarvolume per hour for all hours, then identify a slow time of day. Theremay be an alert for a slow day of week. If the average dollar volume fora particular day of the week is below the overall average dollar for alldays of the week, then identify a slow day of the week.

The data collected and computed by the loyalty system 26 to determinewhether an alerts should trigger may include an overall averagetransaction dollar volume per hour for all hours for the last overalltime period (e.g. 3 months) (i.e. total transaction dollar volume/totalhours in last 3 months), an average transaction dollar volume per hourthat the merchant store is open for last overall time period (i.e. totaltransaction dollar volume for 8 AM/total number of days that merchantstore was open at 8 AM in last 3 months), and so on. Calculations mayonly include the hours within which the merchant store is open forbusiness (i.e. if merchant store is open 9 AM-5 PM on Mondays throughFridays, 9 AM-8 PM on Saturdays, and 10 AM-4 PM on Sundays, only thosehours should be used).

For time of day alerts, if there are multiple slow times of day, then analert may identify the biggest differences from the average. For day ofweek alerts, if there are multiple days of the week, the an alert mayidentify the one with the biggest differences from the average.

FIG. 23C displays an interface screen that may display if the merchanthas already created a reward from an alert. The See Reward Button maytake the merchant to the Reward Detail page of the reward the merchantcreated to address this alert. The label of this button may change oncea reward is created. The Dismiss Button may take the merchant back tothe Alerts List page and changes the status of the alert from ‘new’ to‘past’.

The following example algorithm may be implemented or configured by theloyalty system 26 to determine slow times or off peak periods. A slowtime of day may be defined as one or more rules or thresholds. Anexample rule may provide that if the average dollar volume per hour fora particular hour of the day is below the overall average dollar volumeper hour for all hours, then identify a slow time of day.

The data collected by the loyalty system 26 for a Time of Day Alert(e.g. off peak time of day) may include an overall average number oftransactions per hour for all hours for an overall period of time (e.g.the last 3 months). That is the data may be used to determine a totalnumber of transactions/total hours of operation for an overall period oftime.

The data collected by the loyalty system 26 for a Time of Day Alert mayinclude an average transaction dollar volume per hour that the merchantstore is open for an overall period of time (e.g. last three months).That is the data may be used to determine the total number oftransactions for each time (e.g. hour) period across all days in theoverall period of time/total number of days that merchant store was openat for the time period in overall period of time.

The data collected by the loyalty system 26 for a Day of Week Alert(e.g. an off peak day of the week) may include an Overall average numberof transactions per day for all time periods (e.g. hours) for an overallperiod of time (e.g. the last 3 months). That is the data may be used todetermine the total number of transactions/total days of operation inthe overall period of time.

The data collected by the loyalty system 26 for a Day of Week Alert(e.g. an off peak day of the week) may include an Average transactiondollar volume per day that the merchant store is open for an overallperiod of time (e.g. the last 3 months). That is the data may be used todetermine the total number of transactions for each day of the week themerchant is open across all days in the overall period of time/totalnumber of days that merchant store was open at for that specific day ofthe week in the overall period of time.

If the daily average differs from the overall average then an alert maybe triggered.

The calculations may only include the hours within which the merchantstore is open for business (i.e. if merchant store is open 9 AM-5 PM onMondays through Fridays, 9 AM-8 PM on Saturdays, and 10 AM-4 PM onSundays, only those hours should be used).

If there are multiple slow times of day, then the alert may identifythose with the biggest differences from the average. As an example, thetwo biggest differences from the average may be provided in the alert.

Alerts may be issued for each store/merchant once a week until themerchant has taken action or the underlying data has changed and areported slow period is no longer a slow period.

A negative feedback reward or alert may be triggered when a cardholdercompletes a review and responds with a so-so or dislike (depending onwhich the merchant selects).

For high spending and number of visits thresholds alerts, the loyaltysystem 26 may check each threshold for a merchant when the transactionis entered in the loyalty system 26.

This alert data analysis process may triggered daily by the loading ofthe transaction file. When the transaction files are loaded into theloyalty system 26, the data may be analyzed to determine whether anyalerts trigger and should be generated.

FIGS. 24 and 25 display an interface screen with customer demographicstrends. Customer demographics are examples of customer attributes.

Item 1 provides a Customer Transactions Graph which displays the totalnumber of customers, the number of transactions from returning customersand the number of transactions from new customers over the specifiedtime frame.

Item 2 provides a Customer Visits Graph which displays how frequentlyMembers make a transaction in the specified time frame.

Item 3 provides a Customer Spending Graph which displays how muchcustomers spent per visit. “Average spent per customer” may becalculated by including all customers who have transacted at a specificmerchant to find the average spent per customer for that specificmerchant during the selected time frame.

Item 4 provides a Customer Age Groups Graph which displays a line foreach age group. Each line details the number of customers in that agegroup over the time frame specified. The “Average age” may be calculatedby including ages of all customers who have transacted at a specificmerchant during the selected time frame.

The age key/index lists age groups and total number of customers in eachage group that transacted in the specified timeframe. It is sorted bythe total number of customers in descending order.

Item 5 provides a Customer Age & Gender Graph which displays thecustomer age breakdown for male customers and female customers.

Item 6 provides a Zip Code Graph which displays the zip codes associatedwith customers (depending on data availability from partner company) andthe number of customers associated to that zip code. The zip codes aresorted by the total number of customers in descending order.

Item 7 provides a Location Drop-down which shows all merchant locationsby default. When a location is selected, it shows the first line of thelocation's address. Choosing a location in this dropdown filters thedata for the graphs and statistics to the chosen location. This dropdownmay expand to accommodate differing lengths of texts.

Item 8 provides a Date Pickers which sets the time frame for the dataset. The default time frame is set to the last 30 days of data. The timeframe limits the data for all graphs displayed in Trends Demographics.

Item 9 provides an Index which allows the user to navigate to thedifferent sections by clicking on one of the values.

FIG. 26 displays an interface screen with customer performance trends.

Item 1 provides a revenue drop down which allows the Merchant to changethe data type that is displayed. Options: Revenue, Transactions andDonations.

Item 2 provides a date picker which sets the time frame for the dataset. The default time frame is set to the last 30 days of data.

Item 3 provides a graph area which displays graphs of Total ProgramRevenue, Total Reward revenue and revenue for any selected rewards.

Item 4 provides a Rewards listing which lists all the rewards that wereactive in the specified time frame. Selecting a reward makes the revenuegraph for that reward appear. The list is sorted by start date indescending order.

Item 5 provides a Rewards detail icon which links to the reward detailspage for that reward. It is hidden for non-selected rewards.

Item 6 provides a timeline control which allows the Merchant to set thetime frame of the data by dragging the timeline controls to the desiredstart and end dates. The timeline bar shows the entirety of the data andgives a summary graph of total cardholder revenue.

Item 7 provides a timeline view picker which sets the length of the timeframe. The length of the time frame is set relative to the last date(start or end) changed. If the end date was last changed it sets theduration to end at that date. If the start date was last changed it setsthe duration to begin at that date. For example in the current screenthe length of the time frame is 3 months. If the end date was the lastchanged to May 1st, selecting 1 month in the timeline view picker willchange the start date to April 1st.

Example value of time-line links are:

1W=7 days

2W=14 days

1M=30 days

3M=90 days

6M=180 days

1Y=365 days

2Y=730 days

5Y=1825 days

Item 8 provides a location drop-down which shows all locations bydefault. When a location is selected, it shows the first line of thelocation's address. When Merchant has only one location, the locationdrop-down is not shown.

FIG. 27 displays an interface screen with a performance reward hovermechanism.

Under Trends Tab, a user may select an example reward, such as 10% OffAny Bottle reward.

Item 1 illustrates that hovering over a reward highlights it anddisplays that reward's graph. The graph line of the reward being hoveredover is thicker that the other graphs in this example.

FIG. 28 displays an interface screen with a performance reward hovermechanism. Under Trends Tab, a user may select a data point on thegraph.

Item 1 illustrates that hovering over a data point in a graph maytrigger the display an information overlay that displays the y axisvalues for all displayed graphs on that date. The value for the graphbeing hovered over is highlighted in this example.

As shown in FIG. 3, loyalty system 26 may include a cardholder interfacemodule 62 operable to generate an interface display on a cardholderdevice (not shown). The interface may provide information about thecardholder, available incentives, merchants, loyalty programs, cardissuers, transactions, products, and so on.

The cardholder device may be configured with various computingapplications, such as loyalty program interface application. A computingapplication may correspond to hardware and software modules comprisingcomputer executable instructions to configure physical hardware toperform various functions and discernible results. A computingapplication may be a computer software or hardware application designedto help the user to perform specific functions, and may include anapplication plug-in, a widget, instant messaging application, mobiledevice application, e-mail application, online telephony application,java application, web page, or web object residing, executing, runningor rendered on the cardholder device to access functionality of loyaltysystem 26 and display an interface screen. The cardholder device isoperable to register and authenticate users (using a login, uniqueidentifier, and password for example) prior to providing access toapplications and loyalty system 26.

The cardholder device is operable by a member, customer, cardholder,etc. and may be any portable, networked (wired or wireless) computingdevice including a processor and memory and suitable for facilitatingcommunication between one or more computing applications of thecardholder device (e.g. a computing application installed on or runningon the cardholder device), the loyalty system 26.

In accordance with some embodiments, the cardholder device may be amobile computing device. A mobile computing device may be a two-waycommunication device with advanced data communication capabilitieshaving the capability to communicate with other computer systems anddevices. The mobile device may include the capability for datacommunications and may also include the capability for voicecommunications. Depending on the functionality provided by the mobiledevice, mobile device may be referred to as a portable electronicdevice, smartphone, a data messaging device, a two-way pager, a cellulartelephone with data messaging capabilities, personal digital assistant,a wireless Internet appliance, a portable laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a media player, an electronic reading device, a datacommunication device (with or without telephony capabilities) or acombination of these. The cardholder device may also be a desktopcomputer, or other type of computing device. The cardholder device maybe connected within system 26 via any suitable communications channel(e.g., by way of network 10). The cardholder device may also haveadditional embedded components such as a global positioning system(GPS), a clock, a calendar, and so on. The cardholder device may also beconnected to and receive data from other devices that collect dataregarding the user, objects associated with the user, and so on.

Cardholder interface 62 is operable to implement rules to retrieve datarelevant to cardholder, customer, member. Cardholder interface 62 isoperable to generate an interface rendering a display of the relevantdata. The interface may be optimized for a mobile display screen, a fullsize display screen, a tablet display screen, etc. Cardholder interface62 may receive configuration data regarding the cardholder devicedisplay screen to generate the optimized interface.

FIG. 29 illustrates an example interface for display on the cardholderdevice. The interface provides an expiring view of an incentive.

Item 1 provides a Twist Control. This allows the user to navigate todifferent reward/incentives filters using a touchscreen interface. Thedefault filter when the user first views this screen may be a the Recentfilter. The twist remembers a state for the current session and so anysubsequent changes (filters chosen) may be remembered for the currentsession and the default would be used for future sessions. Example twistvalues include:

All

Nearby

Recent

Expiring

Favorite Merchants

Saved

The twist control may lock at the top of the screen when scrolling andmay always be visible.

Item 2 provides a reward list item. The reward list item displays thereward icon, reward title, store name, donation rate and one relevantdata point. Clicking on a reward takes the user to the reward details.

Item 3 provides a Group indicator. The group indicator demarcates thebeginning of a new reward group. Rewards can be grouped by distance,publish date and expiration period. The groups change based on whatfilter is chosen. The groups are outlined in the relevant filtersections. If there are no rewards present in a group, that groupindicator is not displayed.

Item 4 provides a Redeemed reward. Previously redeemed rewards areindicated by the reward having a different background, “redeemed” textabove the reward title and the reward title being crossed-out.

Item 5 provides a Location Button. Tapping displays the Location Controlwhich allows the user to set location by choosing any address in theirprofile or to use the device's location services (GPS, etc.). Changinglocation can affect results that are based or sorted by distance, e.g.Nearby rewards.

Item 6 provides a Favorite merchant indicator. This indicates that thereward is from merchant that the user had previously selecting as afavorite.

Item 7 provides a Saved for later indicator. This indicates the Memberhas saved the reward.

Item 8 provides a donation rate. Displays the donation rate of a reward,defaults to the merchant donation rate if there is no reward specificdonation rate. The donation rate may only display when the rate is equalor greater than 5%.

Item 9 provides a Data point. The data point that is displayed is basedon what filter is chosen and is detailed in the section dedicated tothat filter screen. Possible data points are:

-   -   Distance. Distance in miles between the Member Location and the        Merchant Location.    -   Date reward was published.    -   Expiration period.

Item 10 provides a Section header.

FIG. 30 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in a default view.

This view may be displayed when a user selects an item under My RewardsScreen from Nearby Tab. This may display available incentives that arenearby a user's current location, work location, home location, etc.

Item 1 provides distance in miles between the Member Location and theMerchant Location.

FIG. 31 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in an expanded reward view.

Item 1 provides a Reward Image.

Item 2 provides a Merchant name. Selecting this link takes the user tothe Merchant details screen.

Item 3 provides a Favorite Merchant Indicator. Indicates that theMerchant Location was marked as a Favorite by the Member.

Item 4 provides a Distance between the Member Location and the MerchantLocation.

Item 5 provides an Expiration. Number of days until expiration of theincentive.

Item 6 provides a Donation rate.

Item 7 provides a Redeem button. Selecting this button takes the user tothe reward activation screen.

Item 8 provides a Map button. Launches a mapping application with thereward location inputted.

Item 9 provides a Call button. Launches a phone dialer with the MerchantLocation number inputted.

Item 10 provides a Save button. This button marks this reward as saved.The link changes color and text, and becomes disabled if it has beensaved.

Item 11 provides a Reward description.

Item 12 provides a Reward fine print (Terms and Conditions).

Item 13 provides a Store link. Displays Merchant Location Details.

FIG. 32 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in an survey review view.

Item 1 provides a Back button. Tapping this displays the previousscreen.

Item 2 provides a Edit button. Tapping this displays the Removingreviews from the list—state screen.

Item 3 provides a Review list item. This displays information about areview. List items are sorted by date in descending order. Tapping alist item displays the Standard Question screen.

Item 4 provides a Transaction date. Item 5 provides a Transaction time.Item 6 provides a Merchant name. Item 7 provides a Pending reviewindicator. Item 8 provides a Transaction amount.

FIG. 33 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in an remove survey items view.

Item 1 provides a Review check box. Multiple reviews can be selectedusing the check boxes.

Item 2 provides a Delete button. This is inactive by default. when oneor more reviews are selected the button becomes active. Tapping thedelete button deletes the selected items and displays the prior screen.

Item 3 provides a Cancel button. Returns the user to the previous screenwithout making any changes.

FIG. 34 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice in rating questions view.

The first survey question may be rating your experience.

Item 1 provides a Back button. This displays the previous screen orprevious question with the selected response highlighted. If this screenwas accessed from the rewards redemption screen, the BACK button may bereplaced with a HOME button—which when tapped will display the Homescreen or page.

Item 2 provides a Question text. There are may be a number of questionsin the Provide Merchant Feedback flow—standard questions, opensquestion, etc.

Item 3 provides a Left Rating icon. The rating icon to the left of theselection. It can be selected by tapping, or swipe-right-and-release.When selected the item is centered.

Item 4 provides a Selected Rating icon. The current selection (defaultis “Like”).

Item 5 provides a Right Rating icon. The rating icon to the right of theselection. It can be selected by tapping, or swipe-left-and-release.When selected the item is centered.

Item 6 provides a Next button. Tapping Next displays the next questionand does not submit any data to loyalty system 26. Data is submittedusing the Submit button.

Other questions may be in the form of a yes/no question

FIG. 35 illustrates an example interface for display on cardholderdevice to ask a survey question. For example, the question may be “Didcharity influence your purchase? Select Yes or No”. This may prompt foradditional details about the charity for use in incentiverecommendations.

FIG. 36 illustrates another example interface for display on acardholder device to ask a survey question. The final survey questionmay ask the cardholder to write a review for their experience with themerchant.

Item 1 provides an Open question. Item 2 provides a Comment field. Thisis a text entry field for the Member to type an optional entry. It maybe limited to 200 characters, for example.

Item 3 provides a Submit button. This is may be active. Tapping Submitdisplays Thank You page and sends the survey data to loyalty system 26.

FIG. 37 illustrates another example interface for display on acardholder device to is response to receiving a survey or review.

Item 1 provides a Thank you message. Item 2 provides a Next Reviewbutton. Tapping this will take the user to the next review in thecardholders list of currently available reviews. If there are no morereviews to be completed or the review flow was accessed from the redeemreward screen then this button may not appear and the Done button willexpand to fill the button area. Item 3 provides a Done button. Tappingthis displays different screens depending on how this flow was accessed.

Members may access this flow in example ways: End of Redeem Rewardexperience and Tapping the Done button displays Home page, Reviews andTapping the Done button displays the reviews list.

FIG. 38 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an aggregated view of donations. As described herein,an incentive may involve a donation to a charity. As many users maytransaction based on an incentive involving a donation a pooled amountof donations may be referred to as a community donation. A total amountof donations may be provided to a user as a way to further engage theuser to make transaction, which may in turn result in donations.

Item 1 provides a Back button. Tapping links to previous page.

Item 2 provides a Community donation. Displays total amount raised inthe program (i.e. within the footprint of the bank) as defined bybusiness rules. The amount may or may not a subset of a time period(i.e. “year to date” or “this month”).

Item 3 provides an Individual donation. Displays amount donated frommember to the charity as defined in business rules. The amount may ormay not a subset of a time period (i.e. “year to date” or “this month”).

Item 4 provides Imagery and copy. Copy may be a previously configuredmessage from the charity and pulled from a database 32.

FIG. 39 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an Interest Indicator.

Item 1 links to the home page. Item 3 provides the customer Interests(e.g. attributes). Interests may be collected in response to questions,in some example embodiments. Interests may be otherwise received such asthrough a text box, suggested listing, and so on. This example shows thenumber of interest questions answered. Clicking the interests link maytrigger the display of additional questions allowing the member toindicate their interest, one question at a time. Item 4 display anindividual donation for a charity. Item 5 displays settings for a user(e.g. password, username, notifications). Item 6 provides a link tocontact an administrator. Item 7 provides a link to cancel a membershipto a loyalty program.

FIG. 40 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an interest question.

Item 1 provides a Back button. Tapping links to previous page. Theexample question is “How much do you like wine?” Item 2 provides aninterest rating (e.g. dislike, like, love) by member displays. Defaultstate shows member's rating in center position (e.g. like). Member canchange rating and changing a rating is saved on change.

Rating interests from the Profile page may be similar to, but differentthan rating interest during the Initial Login experience. In the loginexperience, Members may be asked to rate 5 interests with the option toproceed to rate additional interests. Rating Interests from the Profilepage allows members to provide rating one interest at the time with theoption to ‘keep going’, until there are no more interests to rate, oruntil the Member selects ‘Done’.

Item 3 provides a number of ratings for the user. Displays total numberof Interests member has rated. Item 4 provides a Done button. Tappingsaves the rating for the currently displayed Interest and links to theProfile page. Item 5 provides a Keep Going button. Tapping links to thenext rated Interest or to an Interest that has not yet been rated.

The cardholder interface 62 may also be adapted to generate interfacesfor a full size screen or tablet screen, for example.

FIG. 41 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an overview of rewards.

Item 1 provides a Rewards Filter Bar. This allows the user to navigateto different reward filters. The default filter when the user firstviews this screen is the All filter. The Filter Bar remembers state forthe current session and any subsequent changes (filters chosen) persistfor the current session. The default is used for future sessions.Example values include:

All

Nearby

Recent

Expiring

Favorite Merchant

Saved

The filter bar locks at the top of the screen when scrolling and mayalways be visible.

Item 2 provides a Group indicator. The group indicator demarcates thebeginning of a new reward group. Rewards can be grouped by distance,publish date and expiration period. The groups change based on whatfilter is chosen. The groups are outlined in the relevant filtersections. If there are no rewards present in a group, that groupindicator is not displayed.

Item 3 provides a Reward list item. The reward list item displays thereward icon, reward title, store name. It can also display the donationrate and one relevant data point. Clicking on an item expands that itemand displays additional information (see Rewards List Item Expanded).Rewards with donation rates 5% and above may be larger (height, icon andReward Title text size).

Item 4 provides a Data point. The data point that is displayed is basedon what filter is chosen and is detailed in the section dedicated tothat filter screen. Example data points are:

-   -   Distance. Distance in miles between the Member Location and the        Merchant Location.    -   Date reward was published.    -   Expiration period. Days left before reward expires.

Item 5 provides a Donation rate. Displays the donation rate of a reward,defaults to the merchant donation rate if there is no reward specificdonation rate. The donation rate may only be displayed when the rate isequal or greater than 5%.

Item 6 provides a Favorite merchant indicator. This indicates that thereward is from merchant that the user had previously selected as afavorite.

Item 7 provides a Location Link. Clicking displays the Location Controlwhich allows the user to set location by choosing any address in theirprofile or to use the browser's location services (IP triangulation,etc.). Changing location may affect results that are based or sorted bydistance, e.g. Nearby rewards.

Item 8 provides a Saved for later indicator. This indicates that theMember has saved the reward.

Item 9 provides a Redeemed reward. Previously redeemed rewards areindicated by the reward having a different background, “redeemed” textabove the reward title and the reward title being crossed-out.

FIG. 42 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an overview of rewards in an expanded view.

Item 1 provides a Reward Title. Item 2 provides a Reward Image. Item 3provides a Merchant name. Selecting this link takes the user to theMerchant details screen. Item 4 provides a Distance between the MemberLocation and the Merchant Location. Item 5 provides an Expiration.Number of days until expiration. Item 6 provides a Donation rate. Item 7provides a Save button. This button marks this reward as saved. The linkchanges color and text, and becomes disabled if it has been saved. Item8 provides a Print button. The print button displays the Rewards PrintScreen in a new browser tab. This marks the reward as redeemed in thesystem but is still displayed as an unredeemed reward until either atransaction is associated to the reward redemption or the reward isredeemed using the member mobile website. Rewards can be re-printed.Item 9 provides a Map button. This button activates a mappingapplication with the reward location inputted. Item 10 provides a Rewarddescription. This displays the description and fine print with a maximumof 300 characters, truncated with ellipses at the end. Item 11 providesa Reward Details link. This link displays the Rewards Details Screen.

FIG. 43 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide a transaction feedback survey.

Item 2 provides a List Item. Selecting the list-item displays theStandard Questions Screen for that transaction. Item 3 provides aDate/time column. Presents the data and time of the transaction thattriggered the review. Item 4 provides a Business Name column. Presentsthe name and address of the Merchant location the review is for. Item 5provides a Based on Reward column. If the review was based on a redeemedreward, the title of the reward that triggered the review displays. Item6 provides a Transaction amount presents the amount for the transactionthat triggered the review.

FIG. 44 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to remove survey items.

Item 1 provides an Edit link. While in edit mode, clicking EDIT may donothing and does not have a rollover state. Item 2 provides a Checkboxesallow the member to select one or more list-items. Item 3 provides aDelete button is inactive until the member selects a checkbox. Selectingremoves any checked reviews. If all reviews were Deleted, then the pagemay go to the “No list-items (state).” Item 4 provides a Cancel buttonreverts back to previous state without deleting any items.

FIG. 45 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide survey rating questions. A survey question may be torate your experience or rate a product.

Item 1 provides a Question. Item 2 provides Rating Selections. Forexample, the ratings may consist of four ratings (dislike, so-so, like,love) or yes/no ratings. The Like rating is selected by default. The Yesrating is selected by default.

Item 3 provides a Previous Question Button. When the first questiondisplays (Overall experience with the merchant), this button may bedisabled. When one of the rotating questions displays, the button may beenabled. Item 4 provides a Next Question Button. Selecting displays thenext question.

FIG. 46 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide survey rating questions, with Yes/No Questions.

Other questions may be in the form of a yes/no question.

FIG. 47 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide a review field.

A survey question may ask the cardholder to write a review for theirexperience with the merchant.

Item 1 provides an Open Fixed Question. Item 2 provides a Comment Field.Text entry field. Contains advisory text encouraging the user to make anentry. May be limited to 200 characters, for example. There may be adynamic Character Counter. This may be a text string with the number ofcharacters. The number reduces in real time as the user types.

Item 3 provides a Submit button. This may be always active. Tappingdisplays the survey summary page and sends the survey results to loyaltysystem 26.

FIG. 48 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to display when a review is complete.

Item 1 provides a Dynamic Text Message. This may refer to the BusinessName. Item 2 provides a Next Review button. Selecting displays the nextreview in the Member's list of currently available reviews. If there areno more reviews to complete this button is hidden, and the Done buttonexpands to fill the space. Item 3 provides a Done button. Selecting DONEdisplays the Reviews Landing Page.

FIG. 49 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide information regarding a charity and a donation. Thismay provide an aggregated view of donations.

Item 1 provides a Charity branding and description. Item 2 provides acommunity donation. Displays total amount raised in the program (i.e.within the footprint of the bank). The amount may be a subset of a timeperiod (i.e. not “year to date” or “this month”). Item 3 provides anindividual donation. Displays amount donated from member to the charity.The amount may or may not be a subset of a time period (i.e. “year todate” or “this month”). Item 4 provides a Charity link. Clicking linksto a charity web site.

FIG. 50 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide a list of Interest Questions.

Item 1 provides a Dynamic text. The text displays the number ofinterests the member has rated. Item 2 provides a number rated. Displaysnumber of interests rated with a given value (such as “Love”). Item 3provides a Rated Interests. These may be sorted alphabetically. Clickingdisplays an Edit Rating state (e.g. lightbox of rate interest control).Item 4 provides Unrated Interests. These may be sorted alphabetically.Clicking displays Edit Rating state (e.g. lightbox of rate interestcontrol). When there are more than a predetermined number of unratedinterests, the first column may have a minimum of the predeterminednumber of interests. The columns may have the same number of interests,except the last column, which may have fewer interests. When there areno unrated interests, the “5/30 interests expressed. How about . . . ”copy may change, and the More button may not display. Item 5 provides aMore button. Clicking displays Edit Rating state with first unratedinterest displayed.

FIG. 51 illustrates an example interface for display on a cardholderdevice to provide an Interest Question.

Item 1 provides a, for rated interests, a highlighted value (“Hate” to“Love”) that matches the rating. For unrated interests, the highlightedvalue is the “Like” value.

Item 2 provides a Done button. Clicking saves the rating and returns topage state with new ratings updated. Item 3 provides a Keep Goingbutton. Clicking saves the rating and displays the next unratedinterest. If the displayed interest is the last unrated interest, or ifthere are no unrated interests, this button does not display; the Donebutton is centered.

FIGS. 53 and 54 illustrate flow diagrams for creating an incentive orreward in accordance with embodiments described herein. The incentive orreward may be created in response to a recommendation generated by theloyalty system 26 as described herein. The incentive or reward may becreated in response to an alert generated by the loyalty system 26 asdescribed herein. These are examples only and other events may triggerthe creation of incentives or rewards. FIG. 53 shows an example flow forcreating an incentive, and FIG. 54 shows another example flow forcreating an incentive.

FIG. 53 illustrates that a method for creating an incentive may beginwith a create reward action or display view (e.g. user interface screendisplay). This may provide various actions or options, such as forexample, an option to select a customized objective, an option to selecta sample incentive for modification, an option to view and manage alerts(which in turn may trigger incentive creation), and an option to one ormore sample or default objectives.

Examples of customized objectives include an objective to increasecustomer spending, an objective to acquire new customers, and so on. Thecustomized objectives may enable selection of attributes for customersto tailor the incentive to, such as for example type of customer(potential customers, existing customer), distance from merchantlocation, spending thresholds, and so on. The customized objectives maytrigger the display view of incentive and customer demographics, asdescribed herein.

The option to select a sample incentive for modification may providemultiple samples or templates of incentives to select from and modify.The samples may also be linked to attributes for customers, such thatdifferent selected attributes result in providing a different set ofsamples.

The option to view and manage alerts (which in turn may triggerincentive creation) may display different types of alerts. As describedherein alerts may be triggered based on trend analysis, events, and soon. Example alerts may relate to a gap in customer demographics,off-peak days or times, and so on. The alerts triggered may enableselection of attributes for customers to tailor the incentive to.Example attributes include age ranges, location, gender, and so on.

The display view of incentive and customer demographics (e.g. “RewardDemographics”) may illustrate graphs, reports and charts for differentcustomer attributes based on historical data, industry averages, similarmerchants, the same merchant, predicted data, and so on. Examplecustomer attributes include customer type, gender, age range, distancefrom merchant location, average spending, customer visits, feedback, andso on. The different customer attributes or demographics may be selectedby the user for incentive creation.

A reward or incentive title and description may be received, provided,or otherwise determined or identified by the loyalty system 26.

For the option for one or more sample or default objectives may, exampleobjectives may directed to customers with above average or thresholdspending, negative feedback or reviews, demonstrated loyalty, and so on.

The selection of a sample or default objective may trigger an incentivethreshold display view. The thresholds for different objectives may beview, modified, and so on. The thresholds may be default values,customized values, and so on. For example, the spending threshold may be$10, the feedback threshold may be ‘so-so’ or ‘disliked’, the number ofvisits threshold may be 10 visits. These are non-limiting illustrativeexamples. The thresholds may be modified and selected to generateincentives for customers that fall meet the threshold.

A customize incentive display view (e.g. “Customize Reward”) may createa data structure for maintaining data regarding the incentive in apersistent store. For example, the data structure may define differentdata fields for the incentive with corresponding values, such as forexample, reward identification number, title, description, terms,conditions, donation for charity, icon, photo, stores, merchants,schedule, expiry date, limit, and so on. The schedule may indicate asingle occurrence of an incentive, or a recurring or periodic occurrenceof an incentive. The schedule may define a state date, a duration or enddate, and so on.

A preview display page may provide a preview of the incentive prior tothe incentive being made available to customers. The preview may triggermodifications to the incentive which may in turn result in a revisedpreview. The incentive may be saved for later review, modification, anddissemination.

A merchant may create different incentives for different customers, andso on. The incentives may be associated with donations to charities andthe attributes may relate to charities. The charities may be recommendedbased on trends, and customer demographics.

At a high level FIGS. 53 and 54 show different incentive creation flowswhere the order of “Customize Reward” and “Reward Demographics” actionsor display views may vary. A business administrator may be able todefine what an offer is before defining who can see an offer or use itfor reward creation.

There may be a “Create from Scratch” display view (FIG. 54) that whenclicked immediately takes the user to the “Customize Reward” displayview or action without having to go through an intermediate displayview.

On some flow paths for creating a reward, the “Reward Demographics” maybe skipped or omitted. This may result in the reward being available toall members or customers.

With these flows it may be possible for a business administrator toeasily create a simple reward with fewer steps for increased efficiency.

The embodiments of the systems and methods described herein may beimplemented in hardware or software, or a combination of both. Theseembodiments may be implemented in computer programs executing onprogrammable computers, each computer including at least one processor,a data storage system (including volatile memory or non-volatile memoryor other data storage elements or a combination thereof), and at leastone communication interface. For example, and without limitation, thevarious programmable computers may be a server, network appliance,set-top box, embedded device, computer expansion module, personalcomputer, laptop, personal data assistant, cellular telephone,smartphone device, UMPC tablets and wireless hypermedia device or anyother computing device capable of being configured to carry out themethods described herein.

Program code is applied to input data to perform the functions describedherein and to generate output information. The output information isapplied to one or more output devices, in known fashion. In someembodiments, the communication interface may be a network communicationinterface. In embodiments in which elements are combined, thecommunication interface may be a software communication interface, suchas those for inter-process communication (IPC). In still otherembodiments, there may be a combination of communication interfacesimplemented as hardware, software, and combination thereof.

Each program may be implemented in a high level procedural or objectoriented programming or scripting language, or both, to communicate witha computer system. However, alternatively the programs may beimplemented in assembly or machine language, if desired. The languagemay be a compiled or interpreted language. Each such computer programmay be stored on a storage media or a device (e.g., ROM, magnetic disk,optical disc), readable by a general or special purpose programmablecomputer, for configuring and operating the computer when the storagemedia or device is read by the computer to perform the proceduresdescribed herein. Embodiments of the system may also be considered to beimplemented as a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium,configured with a computer program, where the storage medium soconfigured causes a computer to operate in a specific and predefinedmanner to perform the functions described herein.

Furthermore, the systems and methods of the described embodiments arecapable of being distributed in a computer program product including aphysical, non-transitory computer readable medium that bears computerusable instructions for one or more processors. The medium may beprovided in various forms, including one or more diskettes, compactdisks, tapes, chips, magnetic and electronic storage media, volatilememory, non-volatile memory and the like. Non-transitorycomputer-readable media may include all computer-readable media, withthe exception being a transitory, propagating signal. The termnon-transitory is not intended to exclude computer readable media suchas primary memory, volatile memory, RAM and so on, where the data storedthereon may only be temporarily stored. The computer useableinstructions may also be in various forms, including compiled andnon-compiled code.

It will be appreciated that numerous specific details are set forth inorder to provide a thorough understanding of the exemplary embodimentsdescribed herein. However, it will be understood by those of ordinaryskill in the art that the embodiments described herein may be practicedwithout these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods,procedures and components have not been described in detail so as not toobscure the embodiments described herein. Furthermore, this descriptionis not to be considered as limiting the scope of the embodimentsdescribed herein in any way, but rather as merely describingimplementation of the various embodiments described herein.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving, by way of anetwork, transaction data reflective of completed transactions by way ofreceiving acknowledgement, for each said transaction, of: anauthorization request for the transaction between the cardholder and themerchant; and an authorization response to the authorization requestsent from the card issuer corresponding to the cardholder to themerchant acquirer corresponding to the merchant; and for each saidtransaction for which the authorization response includes an indicatorthat the transaction has been authorized by the card issuercorresponding to the cardholder: processing the received transactiondata to identify at least one cardholder attribute; identifying amerchant; identifying at least one cardholder; identifying ananticipated transaction between the merchant and the at least onecardholder; generating, using a neural network of an artificialintelligence engine, a recommended incentive for the identified at leastone cardholder based on the at least one cardholder attribute, wherein:the recommended incentive defines a benefit to be provided by theidentified merchant to the identified at least one cardholder upon theoccurrence of the anticipated transaction; and the benefit is that themerchant of the anticipated transaction has agreed to make a donation toone or more charities preferred by the identified at least onecardholder upon the occurrence of the anticipated transaction at:  apredetermined time of day; and  a predetermined geographic location; andfor the identified at least one cardholder, means for electronicallytransmitting to a logical address of a mobile device corresponding tothe identified at least one cardholder an alert of the benefit.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the identifying the at least one cardholderis based on similarity between their attributes and the identified atleast one cardholder attribute.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein theidentified at least one cardholder attribute comprises demographics, andwherein the one or more cardholders are identified based on theirdemographics.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least onecardholder is identified based on attributes of the merchant.
 5. Themethod of claim 4, wherein the anticipated transaction is identifiedbased on the identified at least one cardholder attribute.
 6. The methodof claim 4, wherein the at least one cardholder attribute comprises a“Bank Identification Number” (BIN) range.
 7. The method of claim 1,wherein the identified at least one cardholder attribute is identifiedbased on the transaction and the merchant.
 8. The method of claim 7,wherein the at least one cardholder is identified based on thetransaction and the merchant.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein the atleast one cardholder attribute is related to a transaction history ofthe identified at least one cardholder.
 10. The method of claim 8,wherein the transaction history identifies purchases of goods andservices, and merchants the goods and services were purchased from. 11.The method of claim 7, wherein the at least one cardholder attributecorresponds to preferences of the identified at least one cardholder,and wherein the at least one cardholder is identified based on thepreferences.
 12. The method of claim 7, wherein the transaction data isreceived from at least one card issuer.
 13. A system comprising: atleast one processor; a network interface; memory storing instructionsexecutable at the at least one processor to cause the system to:receive, by way of the network interface, transaction data reflective ofcompleted transactions; and for each said completed transaction: processthe received transaction data to identify at least one cardholderattribute; identifying: a merchant; at least one cardholder; and ananticipated transaction between the merchant and the at least onecardholder; generate, using a neural network of an artificialintelligence engine, a recommended incentive for the identified at leastone cardholder based on the at least one cardholder attribute, wherein:the recommended incentive defines a benefit to be provided by theidentified merchant to the identified at least one cardholder upon theoccurrence of the anticipated transaction; and the benefit is that themerchant of the anticipated transaction has agreed to make a donation toone or more charities preferred by the identified at least onecardholder upon the occurrence of the anticipated transaction at: apredetermined time of day; and a predetermined geographic location; andfor the identified at least one cardholder, electronically transmittingto a logical address of a mobile device corresponding to the identifiedat least one cardholder an alert of the benefit.
 14. The system of claim13, wherein the instructions are further executable at the at least oneprocessor to cause the system to generate an alert to notify theidentified merchant of an identified event or trend.
 15. The system ofclaim 13, wherein the transaction data is received from at least onecard issuer.
 16. The system of claim 13, wherein the receivedtransaction data for each completed transaction is reflective of atleast one cardholder attribute for the corresponding said cardholder.17. The system of claim 16, wherein the at least one cardholderattribute comprises the demographics of the cardholder.
 18. The systemof claim 16, wherein the at least one cardholder attribute comprises a“Bank Identification Number” (BIN) range.
 19. The system of claim 18,wherein the at least one cardholder attribute comprises a “BankIdentification Number” (BIN).
 20. The system of claim 14, wherein the atleast one cardholder attribute comprises an attribute relating to thedemographics of the cardholder, and wherein the identified event ortrend relates to the demographics.
 21. The system of claim 20, whereinthe identified event or trend relates to a slow period for the merchant.22. The system of claim 21, wherein the slow period is a particular timeof day.
 23. The system of claim 14, wherein the alert comprises arecommended incentive for a loyalty program.
 24. The system of claim 19,wherein the identified event or trend relates to a gap in customerdemographics.
 25. A non-transitory computer-readable medium or mediastoring computer instructions which when executed by at least onecomputer processor causes the at least one computer processor to performa method comprising: receiving transaction data of completedtransactions and for each said transaction: processing the receivedtransaction data to identify at least one cardholder attribute;identifying: a merchant; at least one cardholder; and an anticipatedtransaction between the merchant and the at least one cardholder;generating, using a neural network of an artificial intelligence engine,a recommended incentive for the identified at least one cardholder basedon the at least one cardholder attribute, wherein: the recommendedincentive defines a benefit to be provided by the identified merchant tothe identified at least one cardholder upon the occurrence of theanticipated transaction; and the benefit is that the merchant of theanticipated transaction has agreed to make a donation to one or morecharities preferred by the identified at least one cardholder upon theoccurrence of the anticipated transaction at: a predetermined time ofday; and a predetermined geographic location; generating an alert tonotify the identified merchant of an identified event or trend;transmitting, by way of the network, the generated alert to theidentified merchant; and for the identified at least one cardholder,electronically transmitting to a logical address of a mobile devicecorresponding to the identified at least one cardholder an alert of thebenefit.
 26. The non-transitory computer-readable medium or mediastoring computer instructions of claim 25, wherein the alert comprises arecommended incentive for a loyalty program.
 27. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium or media storing computer instructions of claim25, wherein the transaction data is received from at least one cardissuer.
 28. The non-transitory computer-readable medium or media storingcomputer instructions of claim 25, wherein the received transaction datafor each completed transaction is reflective of at least one cardholderattribute for the corresponding said cardholder.
 29. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium or media storing computer instructions of claim28, wherein the at least one cardholder attribute for the correspondingsaid cardholder comprises the demographics of the cardholder.
 30. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium or media storing computerinstructions of claim 28, wherein the at least one cardholder attributefor the corresponding said cardholder comprises a “Bank IdentificationNumber” (BIN) range.
 31. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ormedia storing computer instructions of claim 25 wherein the identifiedevent is selected from the group consisting of a slow period for themerchant; a particular time of day; and a particular day of week.